Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Mike_Cirba on August 14, 2008, 11:57:25 AM
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If anyone is the unheralded "forgotten man" who certainly deserves more credit for his role in early American golf, I'm beginning to believe that it's Fred Pickering.
Consider the following accounts:
"As soon as Bendelow arrives he will get to work arranging for the course.
After he has finished his part of the work he will be succeeded by Mr. Pickering, another golf expert, who had charge of the actual work of building some 390 golf links. After Mr. Pickering has completed his task, the links will be ready for play. The eighteen-hole golf course at East Lake, when completed, will be one of the best in the country. The location was highly praised by Alex Findley, one of the world's recognized golf experts, when he was in Atlanta some time ago." - Atlanta Constitution 1905
"Mr. Pickering has charge of all the work of construction and has been busily engaged for some time past in acting as master of ceremonies. He has been interested in all the work, but his special delight is to talk about the course. Its unrivaled opportunities, its location, its natural advantages, and the thousand and one things which he is satisfied will within a short space of years make Atlanta more noted as a golf center than as a city of skyscrapers."
"On second thought there is no need to take your golf friend to the course. Just find Mr. Pickering, this veteran in the art of constructing courses, who has a record in this work longer than the string of victories of the New York National League club, and when you have found him ask him what he thinks of the East Lake club links. He will hand you out a dizzying line of Atlanta boosting golf that would make you believe that he had been born in the Gate City. "
""All you need to do," said he, "is just to give one tournament and get the cracks of the country to come here and look at the course and then await developments. Nothing to it. You won't be able to keep them away. Guns and constables could not keep them out. Yellow fever would not scare them off. They will come, and come to stay just as long as the season can be prolonged."" - Atlanta Constitution 1906
"His latest achievement far surpasses anything he has ever done in the construction of golf links." - News account 1912 reporting on his work at Merion
"Mr. Findlay will send here (Pittsburgh Field Club) Fred Pickering, the king of all golf course constructors, and he will guarantee a course and 18 perfect putting greens of the most undulating kind to be in perfect shape on the first day of June 1915. Should he fail, it would be the first time in his very long golfing career." - Pittsburgh Dispatch 1914 (as reported by Bob Labbance in "From Cricket to Golf")
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"Though I appreciate the warm sentiment, I must state that I'm just a man, same as you." - Fred Pickering
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"Golf is of course a feature. A new course has been laid out over an old pasture abounding in natural hazards, including creeks, ditches, ponds, and sand traps. The course is 2820 yards in length, and the hotel company is preparing to add nine more to the present nine holes during the season of 1913. The holes are scientifically laid out and the putting greens are exceptionally large and quite undulating, which meets with the approval of all lovers of the tricky putt. The course was arranged and laid out by the well-known golfer, A.H. Findlay, and the expert grass grower, F. G. Pickering, each of whom predicts a great future for the game in the lovely Grenbrier Valley." - USGA Bulletin 1912 reporting on the opening of the course at Greenbrier (Old White)
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Mike - how important do you feel the 'constructor' is in today's designs? We've recently uncovered some construction errors. Things like subsurface putting green drains leading to clay barriers and ever-sinking sprinklerheads. The original constructor correced the defects gratis.
Do you think Pickering was like today's 'shaper', or did he do it all?
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Mike - thanks.
This brings a question I have into focus. When it comes to these early days of American golf course architecture, I tend to divide the folks who knew what they were doing into two camps, i.e. the constructors and the conceptualizers -- the ones who focused (by choice or station) on actually shaping the earth and the ones who conceived of the holes themselves, their challenges and options and strategic principles as (somtimes) manifested in the great golf holes in the UK and a few American courses. Both diciplines/talents/tasks developed over the years, and at some point you got architects who were both the constructors and the conceptualizers; but in the early days those functions seemed to be separate. To put my question simply (simplistically) - is that an accurate description and an accurate 'dividing line'? Did someone like Mr. Pickering blur that line or confirm it? (I note the reference to the "art of constructing courses"...but maybe they were using "art" differently than I would today. But I also note the division of labour between Findlay "the well-known" golfer and Pickering the "grass-grower"). What am I to make of this?
Thanks
Peter
Edit - I've just seen Dan's post. He puts it better than I did, though from a different angle.
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Mike
That is very interesting info. Pickering must have been Findlay's right hand man, and for a number of years. I suspect Findlay had something to do with Pickering's (and Flynn's)involvement at Merion.
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Tom
It seems he worked for Bendelow and Ross as well prior to 1910.
Hugh Wilson also used him at Seaview.
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Mike - I didn't realize that you'd provided references that were newly-discovered or little known. If I had, my first question might've been more to the point, which might be "390 courses?! By 1905?! I didn't know there were that many courses around, let alone so many "Bendelows" and "Findlays" for a constructioin man like Pickering to have helped."
Is that what was going on? Did that surprise you as well? What can I draw from that?
Thanks
Peter
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Peter,
I found those numbers astounding.
I'm not sure the total number of courses in this country by then but even the math would be dubious if you figure that courses didn't really start getting built until about 15 years prior.
While the number may be hyperbole, it also seems that Pickering was involved with many of the most important courses before 1910, and it also seems Findlay, Ross, Bendelow, and Wilson all had considerable confidence in his abilities.
This leaves me with the obvious question that I don't know the answer to.
Where was Pickering born and if it was in the old country, did he construct courses there?
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Thanks, Mike - yes. And another question that occurs to me (probably unaswerable, or close to it): "What did he teach Findlay, Ross, Bendelow, and Wilson, and what did he learn from them...and when?"
Like I wanted to mention in the Flynn thread, the increasing 'sophistication' in golf course DESIGN (leaving the construction side alone for a while) is something I don't understand. By sophistication I mean that sense of ease and maturity and mastery that I sense (from pictures only) in much of Ross' work or later Flynn work and certainly the work of a few other (later) designers. In some of the Flynn work, it's like his courses simply fit the land instead of overtly or self-consciously "Fitting The Land"; or they offer strategic options and nuance without obviously providing "Various Shot Tests". In short, he didn't try too hard...which strikes me as a trait of an old pro more than a young pup.
I'm probably not explaining myself well, but I hope you know what I mean. To put it simply, the "art" of golf course architecture seemed to evolve quite rapidly in those two decades, say from 1905 to 1925. I won't even say matured or improved, because I'll allow that this is a value judgement; but it certainly evolved.
And what was the impetus of that evolution? Rightly or wrongly, I equate "influence" with this impetus...and hence my question about Pickering (and similar question about Flynn's influences).
No need to even try to answer, Mike - I'm just thinking out loud.
Peter
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Mike, I am amazed by that. I have to admit to never having heard of Pickering until the late lamented Merion threads.
Didn't Merion have agronomy issues early on? Without pointing fingers in any way, why do you suppose Hugh Wilson needed to have such a sustained and ongoing relationship with Piper and Oakley?
Do you read it that the 'constructing' and the 'growing of grass' were separate areas--the quotes don't seem to support that reading to me.
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It's unclear (at least to me) exactly when Pickering came on board with Merion East but it seems it probably wasn't during the six months (spring 1911-Sept 1911) when the course was originally done and then allowed to "grow-in" for a year (Sept 1911-Sept 1912). During those six months of original construction Pickering's name is not mentioned. Initially the contractors hired to construct the course were known as Johnson Contractors. Unless Pickering had something to do with them he was probably not involved at this point.
How did Pickering get involved with Merion East? I don't really know but it may've been Flynn that was responsible for recommending him. Did Pickering and Flynn have an architecture relationship going back to Heartwellville, Vermont around 1909?
ahughes:
Pickering is mentioned in those Wilson/Piper and Oakley agronomy letters but not until later. According to Wilson, Pickering was very good but unfortunately he had a major-league problem with the sauce. On the West course project (1913) he was fired and replaced as construction foreman by Flynn.
Trivia:
Even though it's probably a real coincidence of names, one of the original forebears of the Boston Brahmin Gardner family was 18th and 19th century's Samuel Pickering Gardner! ;)
Flynn married a Gardner and Pickering married Flynn's sister! :P
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Findlay and Pickering did a course that opened for play in the spring of 1909 in Attleboro, MA, called Highland Country Club.
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Fred - the Highland CC website states:
"Highland was first founded in 1892 and has been listed, by the USGA, as one of the first 100 clubs established in the U.S. The course was architected by Pettis in 1901. There are additional tees that can be used when playing an eighteen hole round. The par for eighteen holes is 70 playing at 6,130 yards. "
(This was from http://www.highlandcountryclubattleboro.com/GolfCourse.asp )
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"the Highland CC website states:
"Highland was first founded in 1892 and has been listed, by the USGA, as one of the first 100 clubs established in the U.S. The course was architected by Pettis in 1901. There are additional tees that can be used when playing an eighteen hole round. The par for eighteen holes is 70 playing at 6,130 yards. "
Daniel:
Well, what the hell difference does it make what the club says about who originally designed their course?
As we have seen for quite some time now we have two new expert research eagles on board GOLFCLUBATLAS.com now and if they say someone else designed any of these courses then that just damn well means the club and their records are wrong and perhaps they've even been lying all these years attempting to create some local "legends" or whatever.
But if you're actually trying to imply perhaps those two self-admitted expert research eagles might be the ones who're wrong----do us all a favor and break that news to them ultra- gently, would you please? They seem to get insulted incredibly easily if anyone questions them and their illogical assumptions and exaggerations.
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Pickering also worked with Ross in 1909, and with Bendelow prior to then.
It seems he was generally known to all the archies as the construction and grow-in guy.
He evidently also made a hell of a clay tennis court, which seemed to be another of his in-demand skills.
One newspaper account from Waterloo, IA no less credits Pickering for laying out Merion right after Merion opened in 1912.
It first lists Wilson and the members of the construction committee and then mentions Pickering and says he work there far transcends what he ever did on any of his previous courses.
I quoted a snippet of it in my first post on this thread.
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Fred - the Highland CC website states:
"Highland was first founded in 1892 and has been listed, by the USGA, as one of the first 100 clubs established in the U.S. The course was architected by Pettis in 1901. There are additional tees that can be used when playing an eighteen hole round. The par for eighteen holes is 70 playing at 6,130 yards. "
(This was from http://www.highlandcountryclubattleboro.com/GolfCourse.asp )
Dan,
Well the website appears to contradict the Boston Journal, which in March of 1909 reported that Attleboro would have one of the finest courses in the Mass. when it opened the next month with a tournament, and that the course had been put into condition under the direction of Pickering and Alex Findlay. (They got Pickering's first name wrong, but I am not aware of another "expert" named Pickering who worked with Findlay.)
Perhaps Pettis "architected" an earlier course and Findlay redesigned it in 1908.
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David,
Perhaps you should contact Highland CC and ask them for their BOD minutes from that era.
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Jeeesus Christ Almighty, some of these total wackos on here are trying to imply that the BODers of golf clubs need to rely on newspaper articles to inform them of the accuracy of what they are actually doing with their golf courses?!?
And these couple of people on here have the nuts to imply they are researchers?!?
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Pickering was a very interesting guy. In the 1890s he was one of the premier cricketers in the country. For more than a decade he was the professional of the Boston Cricket Club at Franklin Field. I suspect his greenkeeping skill were developed overseeing the cricket grounds. As has been stated he built a number of courses prior to and after Merion.
I've always thought Wayne and TE were way too hard on him, their complete focus was the apparent troubles he had with the drink at Merion and Seaview (according to one letter). They left you with the impression he was some kind of derelict, but Wilson engaged him after Merion at Seaview, and he was working and buiding golf courses in the years following those 'troubles'. Ironically he ended his career being the long time greenkeeper at Myopia Hunt. I presume they thought he had his act together.
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Mr. MacWood:
Too bad you've never read the Wilson/Piper and Oakley "agronomy" letters. If you had you wouldn't have said what you just did.
They're available, you know, and not that hard to get. What's your problem? Why haven't you gotten them and read them? Why do you have to constantly depend on us for that information? You claim you're this great researcher, right, so what's your problem?
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TE
Regarding Pickering its a matter of perspective, trying to keep everything in perspective.
I have many of those letters, although none dealing with Pickering.
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David,
Perhaps you should contact Highland CC and ask them for their BOD minutes from that era.
Dan, I can tell you are upset. Could you please tell me specifically what has you so upset? Was it the tone of my posts about Highlands? Or the content?
Because I am just putting the information on the table.
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Mike - you mentioned him working with Ross. This is from a 1909 Golf Illustrated:
"On Saturday, Oct. 16, the Belmont Spring Country Club had a preliminary opening, nine holes of the course being ready for play and several lawn tennis courts. A large number of visitors were astonished at the progress made in the golf links under the direction of Donald J. Ross, the Oakley professional, F. G. Pickering the old cricketer and green-keeper, and Mr. Joseph DeCamp, the artist, who recently has taken great interest in the work. The links take in a wonderful piece of country, offering the most superb views in the vicinity of Boston and the course in its ultimate layout will be one of the best in Massachusetts. The club house has been furnished and the locker room and all its accommodations have the finish and the atmosphere of a country house rather than of a hotel. On the opening day Donald J. Ross, Alex Ross, Mr. Joseph DeCamp and Mr. G. C. Dutton played an exhibition match, and crack lawn tennis players came over from Longwood and played a set or two."
What the heck was going on in 1909 - artists just showing up at golf courses and taking a great interest in the work? Quite the sophisticates, huh? :)
Hey, maybe I just answered my own question, i.e. maybe it was Mr. DeCamp who put the "art" in architecture! (just kidding) Edit: I brushed off Mr. DeCamp too lightly, apparently. I went to see if I could find something else, and here was something from a 1918 Golf Illustrated:
"The Wollaston Golf Club of Montclair, Mass., adopted a plan at its recent annual meeting which possibly is not original, but which is something new for Greater Boston courses in a number of years. Criticism was made, at the annual meeting, about the lack of development of the course, which has remained in pretty nearly the same state for years. Mr. Joseph DeCamp suggested that an advisory committee to the green committee be appointed, this committee to study the course and make suggestions to the green committee for alterations and improvements when the club has the funds to make such changes. His motion for an advisory committee of six was carried and he was named as chairman of the committee."
Peter
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David,
I'm not upset at all.
Simply stated, your research into Highland CC obviously contradicts the club's history. I thought that you could use the BOD minutes from Highland to help determine if you're correct.
Peter - good info and a good story. That must've been an interesting day 99 years ago!
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I've always thought Wayne and TE were way too hard on him, their complete focus was the apparent troubles he had with the drink at Merion and Seaview (according to one letter). They left you with the impression he was some kind of derelict, but Wilson engaged him after Merion at Seaview, and he was working and buiding golf courses in the years following those 'troubles'. Ironically he ended his career being the long time greenkeeper at Myopia Hunt. I presume they thought he had his act together.
I have long been on the record on this site and in our Flynn book that Pickering was a very important figure in the development of Merion's first course in Ardmore. I mentioned that Pickering's experience outweighed that of Barker, Macdonald and Whigham combined. Their Macdonald theory was based on the erroneous fact that Wilson and Committee did not have enough experience or ability at the time to design and develop Merion's first Ardmore course without relying on Macdonald and Whigham. The Club did rely on M&W in exactly the manner they've always credited them with. Not as routers and designers of the golf course as MacWood and what's his name would have everyone believe despite evidence to the contrary. I suggested Pickering may have worked for the outside construction crew hired by Merion to build the golf course. I have suggested in the past that the contractors had a lot to do with the look and design details of the golf courses they built. I championed the role of Pickering for many years while Tom MacWood ignored him and sought to bring attribution credit to Barker, Macdonald and Whigham; basically everybody but the true participants in the design and build process, namely Wilson and Committee and Pickering. We did cite reasons for Pickering's dismissal and later problems at Seaview. Pickering may have gotten his act together down the road, we did not explore his work after Seaview, for it had no relevance to the book we wrote on FLYNN. We DID NOT address Pickering's role in a way that besmirches him in any way. We told the truth in a rather sympathetic way. His actions opened the doors to Flynn's greater role on the West Course and launched his career. Sadly at the expense of Pickering.
It was the two princes of besmirch, MacWood and he who shall go unnamed, that long-ignored Pickering. Now, when they wish to discredit and embarrass Tom Paul and I using a 5-year old obsolete manuscript draft in their knit-picking quest for rewriting minute details when they consistently get the big ones wrong--like completely misrepresenting Macdonald and Whigham's role at Merion based on suppositions and minimizing and getting completely wrong Wilson's initial role, based on fact. Interestingly, MacWood and he who shall go unnamed, to this day do not for a minute think they just might be wrong and consider that evidence we have obtained may just upset their shaky house of cards model. They see our withholding facts from THEM as indications that we are purposefully hiding facts that support their claims and smash our own. Once again they are WRONG. We have shown a number of people, mostly at MGC and MCC, but select others, the raw material. One of the viewers of the raw material is a golfing buddy of the California component of the disastrous duo. We deny these two guys the material because of their conduct, their process and their conclusions. Someday they will have access to it, perhaps via the USGA, they could always come to MGC or MCC at some future date and ask for permission or they can go to Mike Hurdzan as he will surely have a copy, and one day the book in his impressive collection.
Rather than figuring out where they may have gone wrong with their work to date, they deflect from their mistakes and now accuse Flynn's daughter of memory failure and our inclusion of information related by her--all taken from an old draft manuscript. By the way, MacWood, Flynn was born and raised a Catholic (until he himself decided against following that Church at age 12). Flynn's daughter told us that his father's ancestors came from Cork and not Northern Ireland even though one document that she saw and we have access to has Northern Ireland on it. Our opinion, aided by Flynn's daughter, is that Flynn's father left Queenstown for America. Someone from Northern Ireland would not do that. You may have time to exhaustively search out the truth, we were content with Flynn's daughter's account and as it wasn't pivotal to Flynn's work in golf, we presented it. MacWood seeks the elusive influences (purely subjective and interpretive) and thinks this data important. Well, we had a 1700 page book to write and we were hoping to get it done in our lifetime. Tom MacWood and what's his name would have us abandon work (well, me in any case) and push back the process to publish in order to explore to the end of the road the many thousands of information pieces. Does anyone think that is rubbish? Why are they considering the 3-5 year old draft of a manuscript (a mere fraction of the content the current version is) when there are plenty of books out their that are published with serious mistakes in them, including one on their beloved Macdonald? It isn't because they are intellectually curious about Flynn, that is a thinly veiled attempt to camouflage their true ambition, to bring disrepute to Tom and I. That is their motivation and goal. Make no mistake about it.
Look, the fact is, we came up with 1700 pages of detailed information on Flynn. Are we 100% accurate about everything? No. We don't claim to be. We offer our best efforts and sometimes, though clearly stated, our opinions while providing citations. The readers can decide for themselves. We did not write the book as if we were being cross examined in court and providing testimony, though it feels that is the process on this website from MacWood and he who still remains nameless. We did extensive due diligence on everything relating to golf course architecture. Forgive us for trusting Flynn's daughter for family facts. She and her niece studied this and we used their information, not to perpetuate myths or build legends as two would accuse us in their broken record fashion. We did not do deep due diligence on every fact she provided. I guess we are a bit more trusting of people than MacWood. He has never met her, so he is removed from the situation. Perhaps that is good, perhaps not. Before he continues his quest to discredit her and her representations, perhaps he ought to consider what it has to do with our primary interest, golf architecture. Leave her alone. Point the blame at Tom and I if you must, but have the decency to leave her out of your maniacal frenzies.
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"TE
Regarding Pickering its a matter of perspective, trying to keep everything in perspective."
Mr. MacWood:
Yes, it is a matter of perspective. You should both know, understand and appreciate that Wayne Morrison has mentioned the value of Pickering to Merion for years. It's all in threads on this website now in the far back pages but apparently you aren't aware of that.
You've mentioned on here you don't even bother to read posts that are more than a paragraph or two. Perhaps you should start reading them. Perhaps you should've started years ago and you might be amazed what you would know now. Pickering is just another example.
Wilson's letters to Piper and Oakley are actually a treasure trove of valuable information on the mindset, the problems and concerns of a man, Hugh Wilson, pretty much dedicated to the architectural and agronomic development of a great golf course and consistently from Feb. 1, 1911 until shortly before his sudden death at 45 in early 1925. Even though the subject is generally about golf agronomy, Wilson shared all kinds of concerns an interests with Piper and Oakley including the subject of architecture and in some cases the people who worke with him at Merion, includng Toomey, Flynn and Pickering and Valentine (At one point he even plied Piper's contacts for all available research on tarpon fishing) 8). His concern about Pickering was just one of many and its not hard to tell that Wilson valued Pickering although recognizing the guy obviously had a serious problem. But it's also pretty obvious it's hard to keep a good man down because Wilson did go back to him with Seaview.
"I have many of those letters, although none dealing with Pickering."
That's too bad because this thread is on Fred Pickering! ;)
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PeterP
In your first few posts on this thread you asked some really good questions. I think anyone with a pretty fair understanding of this fascinating era (you use 1905-1925---I would use just before 1900-1925 or slightly later) would have to admit the answers to your questions are never going to be easy answers or all that exact for obvious reasons---eg it really was a general evolution even if one that seemed to get rolling like a spigot opening to full bore in both quantity and particularly quality and quality in concept as well as in sophisticated style actually on the ground.
So what was happening in this interesting era in the evolution of golf course architecture, particularly in America, that made for this explosion of ideas and styles and concepts and techniques and increasing specializations?
I think the answers and reasons are just so numerous it gets really hard to analyze any single one of them individually---in others words, they are all just so interrelated and intertwined. Things were just beginning to come together from so many perspectives all at the same time, but mostly the whole tapestry was motivated and driven by the fact that golf itself was expanding like wild-fire in America and the need and demand to think better and improve was the logical extension and the next logical evolutionary step.
I don't think we need to look much farther than at most all the very early real rudimentary courses of the late 19th and early 20th century and at the fact that they were clearly so bad that they collectively became totally unacceptable to the early practitioners and rapidly increasing participants in golf over here, a few of which knew a little bit about how good golf with good NATURAL architecture abroad could be (primarily the linksland). In this particular case I'm not just talking about some of those early jack-of-all-trades immigrant Scots who came over here to help lay out and promote the game in America and in the meantime make a new life for themselves and their families they did not enjoy in their homelands. I'm most definitely talking about that type and even class like the Leedses, Emmets, Macdonalds, Fowneses, Crumps, Wilsons, Thomases, Hunters, Behrs et al who had the resources and opportunities to go abroad as most of them had for other things and other interests anyway.
I would not be averse to somewhat generalizing and calling this particular group "renaissance" men. The fact is they were all considered to be highly educated (most through the pinnacle institutions of the so-called Ivy League schools and colleges) for their times----they knew that and understood it and they really did feel they had abilities probably borne from curiosity and sophistication through exposure to mostly classical education of the finest order. In a word, they probably felt they were "The best and the brightest" in many things or even in most anything they tried and dedicated themselves too.
Somewhat oddly, because it seems sort of counter-intuitive but one of the burning interests of some of this group and type was sports and excellence in sports! And in many cases this was not just some single sport but often a few of them simultaneously. One just needs to look at some of them such as Herbert Leeds or H.C. Fownes or Max Behr or George Thomas to tell this. Their mindset and frankly their culture looked at sport in something of the classic Olympian model that denoted "amateurism"---a quest for excellence in sport simply for the love of the sport. This was considered to complete the cycle of what was considered to be the "well rounded" man---the sort of "renaissance gentleman"---in their mind a form of the ideal man.
Enter that so-called group referred to as the "amateur/sportsman" designer who all were pretty much that and generally considered, at that time, to be that.
You're right, Peter, they were the conceptualizers because they felt they could be better and do better than what they saw from those who came before them.
But was it only all about talent? Of course not. What they had that those of the Scottish immigrant group did not have at all is the time, and obviously they had that time because they also had the resources that created the opportunity to devote that time to these projects the other group never had.
There is more, lots more, but for later.
Certainly, as we've discussed before off-line the entire area of the rapid development in golf agronomy from theretofore almost complete lack of understanding was as important as architecture in this interesting time. But there is another reason that was clearly cultural that some today might feel both uncomfortable discussing or even considering despite how completely prevalent it really was back then.
Interestingly, the latter can probably be largely contained and explained in a single seemingly throw-away phrase that completely prevaded that time and class and social structure. It was called "working with your hands". This was something those people who considered themselves to be "gentlemen" and of a particular class simply did not do and if they ever did it was for the love of some endeavor and definitely not for money or financial remuneration. The word or term "tradesman" was fairly synonymous.
Some on here may laugh at this and dismiss it as fanciful or romantic but if they do that they do it at the risk of historic inaccuracy and of a very tall order.
Those guys hired people to get their hands dirty and carry out the "concepts" in architecture of that particular group.
And that is a lot of the engine of this entire fascinating time of the so-called "amateur/sportsman" designer who clearly felt the need to pick up the slack in the dearth of quality back then (maybe the end of the 19th century/1900 until just after WW1 when none of them began again those projects they had done earlier that became the famous American courses from that fascinating era they spent so much time on).
The fact that they never really began any of those types of projects after around WW1 just might be as important to understanding the whys and wherefores of this era as the fact that they began them, as they did, earlier! ;)
And this is when, in my opinion, some of the most interesting things of all happened, and from both sides. This is when the first real "crossing-over" began from the particular classes and specialities and previous segregations. Those former gaps and cultural and actual segregations in golf and architecture and society and culture too within and without the sport. Great examples would be A.W. Tillinghast from the elite class and William Flynn from the "work with your hands" workingman world. This is one of the reasons Flynn has always fascinated me so much---eg he was a great example of a real "bridge" this way.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about all of this is it once again confirms that if one gets really good in most any area that has to do with golf---eg as a golfer, as an architect or as a agronomist et al, they will almost always find real democracy at the other end. In this way golf in the over-all just might be one of the greatest "levelers" we have ever known. Of course, as you know I feel and as I know you feel, always somewhere hanging around the edges of it all---eg golf---there is this mysterious thing we have come to call "The Spirit". Whatever it really is I think somehow it manages to tie it all together including anyone with which it had to do and who had to do really well with it. ;)
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This is what I wrote on the other thread (William Flynn Influences) this morning in answer to Adam Messix, but thought we should keep the Pickering stuff together;
"I'm now very curious about Pickering.
Besides Alex Findlay and perhaps Tom Bendelow there is no question that he had the most input into course creation in this country and was involved with various architects and high-profile projects.
The fact he claimed to have over 300 courses worked on by 1905 is simply staggering.
I'm wondering where he was born...was he ever overseas...when did he die?
As far as Kilcare, if Findlay designed it, the aerials should give us a clue of that, I agree."
This is the snippet from the Waterloo (IA) Times-Tribune from September 1912;
"The Merion Golf Association has opened its new course which is 6245 yards in length, with enough space to make it 6,500 at any time it is deemed advisable to do so."
"The Construction Committee consisted of Hugh I. Wilson, H.G Lloyd, R.E. Griscom, R.S. Francis, and H. Toulmin. Fred Pickering, who made Woolaston, Woodland, and Belmont, Mass., Lake Placid, NY, and Atlanta, GA, and other courses too numerous to mention, laid out the new Merion links. His latest achievement far surpasses anything he has ever done in the construction of golf links."
One wonders if Pickering had a PR agent in mid-America. ;)
Interestingly, this is the only newspaper where I've seen this article copied, although I believe Joe Bausch found a copy somewhere as well, so it could have also been in one of the Philly papers. Perhaps he can confirm?
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Given the social pecking order of the time, and the way golf "professionals" were viewed, you have to wonder where a Fred Pickering would have been as what seems to be the Construction Foreman.
It seems little wonder he didn't get much press.
He also almost certainly had more agronomic, construction, and general golf course shaping knowledge than any man in America at the time he was brought to Merion.
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And would a guy like Pickering be like a golf pro at the time - not even allowed into the clubhouse? And, if so, that would explain a lot about why he would've been a bit of an afterthought to the members of that day and age.
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Mike - thanks. And then 6 years later (1918) artist-golfer Joseph DeCamp, who'd worked with Pickering and Ross on Belmont, is chosen to head up the advisory committee to make changes to Wollaston. Interesting times.
TE - thanks. Partly I realize that the questions I tend to ask are almost un-answerable, but partly I think those questions are really worth asking, at least on a discussion board like this. Here's another one: I find it interesting that, if I asked fans of architecture nowadays to pin-point or suggest when the MODERN rennaissance started in golf course design, I'd probably get a pretty good sense of which one or two designers and which one or two of their courses were most responsible for bringing about a marked and dramatic change in that art-craft, and when. But yet, when we look back at that earlier period of golf course architecture (say between 1900-1930), which itself seems to have been if not a "re-birth" then a "birth" of the art-craft in America, it gets so much harder to do (or am I wrong in this?) Why does there appear to be greater consensus about the designers, courses, and the factors involved in today's rennaissance than there is about yesterday's rennaissance? A year ago I would've imagined it was because the 'records' and 'media' and 'promotion' about architects and their courses is much more voluminous and avaliable today, but now it seems that there was a lot of coverage back then too.
Peter
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Mike Cirba:
Fred Pickering can definitely be considered Merion's construction foreman. Only problem was because of his unreliablity due to excessive drinking he got replaced in that capacity at Merion by Flynn and probably around 1914 or so.
But if you think Pickering is something of a forgotten man in the broad scheme of things at that time and in that place the one who has always been really mysterious to us is Howard Toomey. It's just real hard to put together a total picture of who he was, what he came up from and what-all he did.
We think he was a pretty sophisticated railroad construction engineer and we sure do know that the principles of MCC at that time were heavily connected to American railroads. But Toomey was apparently not considered to be some working class guy by that group because he not only belonged to Pine Valley back then, he was actually on its board for a time.
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"But yet, when we look back at that earlier period of golf course architecture (say between 1900-1930), which itself seems to have been if not a "re-birth" then a "birth" of the art-craft in America, it gets so much harder to do (or am I wrong in this?) Why does there appear to be greater consensus about the players and the factors involved in today's rennaissance than there is about yesterday's rennaissance? A year ago I would've imagined it was because the 'records' and 'media' and 'promotion' about architects and their courses is much more voluminous and avaliable today, but now it seems that there was a lot of coverage back then too."
Peter:
Even if you might not have realized it I think you answered your own question. As I tried to point out in the long post above that earlier era was a total "birth" in my opinion in American architecture. It was not a "rebirth" or renaissance in American architecture because there was absolutely nothing that preceded it in America to go back to.
I believe what those early practitioners looked to for their inspiration for the first good architecture in America which is arguably Myopia and GCGC was the linksland but particularly what was happening in the INLAND English heathlands. I think the immense divide between those two areas was so huge that most of us just don't really understand today what-all it meant to them back then.
The difference between the inspirations emanating out of the heathlands compared to the original linksland was those over here like Emmet and Leeds understood the vast, vast difference they were facing between what was the almost wholly natural topography of coastal golf (linksland) with its massive sand based atmosphere and make up and INLAND golf which had just about none of that.
They realized if they wanted great golf architecture INLAND there was a whole lot of stuff they would have to actually make, and further the problems of somehow making it look even semi-similar to the real thing in the linksland. In the case of Myopia, however, Leeds pretty much had some great natural topography (landforms) for golf. What he didn't have that the coastal linksland had naturally though, was sand, and all that meant to the entire architectural concept of bunkering and such.
As Max Behr said, if there was one really odd vestige of the original natural sandy linksland sites that hung on in golf architecture totally when in fact it didn't really have to inland it was the occurence of sand and sand bunkering. But it did hang on, we know that, and it hung on just about totally through the ages into today. It was something no golf architect ever really let go of. In the process it just might be the single biggest item and feature to seriously complicate the transition and evolution from original golf in the linksland to inland golf that began around the middle of the 19th century and filtered over to America in the last decade of the 19th century.
You know me, because we've talked about this off-line a lot----I think the future of golf really does need to begin to experiment with golf and golf architecture that just lets sand and sand bunkering go after over 150 years.
However, I do realize that in that opinion I am in a very serious minority. The one who probably disagrees with me most on that point is my old primary architecture mentor, Bill Coore.
I thought my other close mentor in architecture, Gil Hanse, would too and maybe he does but recently at a really cool dinner of lots of architecture types I asked him in front of everyone if there was one thing he would like to experiment with in architecture what would it be and he said: "Mounds." Maybe he meant sand mounds---I forgot to ask, but I hope he was thinking of grass mounds. :)
On the other hand, we've been seriously considering recommending restoring one of the most amazing sand mounds you ever saw on the 10th hole at The Creek, even if the EPA may not allow such a thing today. The thing was probably about ten feet high and covered an area of maybe 5,000+ SF. It was right next to the beach.
My old friend George Holland (The Creek's historian) told me the other day he had to go down to the beach club at The Creek for a cocktail party and he definitely wasn't looking forward to it. So I told him to just fire down about 3-4 glasses of wine in rapid succession and then just walk about 150 yards over to where that amazing sand mound used to be on #10 and with his little bucket and shovel make me that amazing sand mound again. He said to do that with his little bucket and shovel might take a year. I told him he had to do it by the next morning, and if it got to be too hard through the night just go back to the beach club and fire down a few more glasses of wine and get back on the job.
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Ran into this little tidbit from the Philly Inquirer in December of 1912:
(http://darwin.chem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/Merion_East/12-15-1912_Inky.jpg)
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(http://darwin.chem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/Merion_East/12-15-1912_Inky.jpg)
Joe,
So...Pickering was a freakin' journalist, as well?! Who knew?!? :o
Although, I did find myself wishing to find his killer recipe for a good Rum punch instead. ;)
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I amend what I said earlier. On the strength of that article Joe Bausch just posted it looks like Pickering must have been the greenkeeper Wilson mentioned to Oakley but didn't name.
Wayne:
Did we ever ask ConnieL about Pickering or about anything her dad ever said about him? The guy was her married uncle, right?
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When did Pickering move to Philadelphia?
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"When did Pickering move to Philadelphia?"
Why can't you figure that one out for yourself, Mr, MacWood? Do you really think we should help you with everything to do with architecture in this city? :o
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TE, Joe - thanks; good stuff.
This will add nothing to the thread, but I've mentioned Mr. DeCamp twice on this thread and couldn't help wanting to find out a little more about the artist who is listed as being involved in Belmont (how, I wonder) with Ross and Pickering, and then later as leading the advisory board re: changes at Wollaston. So:
"Joseph Rodefer DeCamp (November 5, 1858 - February 11, 1923) was an American painter. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he studied with Frank Duveneck in that city. In the second half of the 1870s he went with Duveneck and fellow students to the Royal Academy of Munich, then spent time in Florence, Italy, returning to Boston in 1883.
He became known as a member of the Boston school led by Edmund Charles Tarbell, focusing on figure painting, and in the 1890s adopting the style of Tonalism. He was a founder of the Ten American Painters, a group of American Impressionists, in 1897. A 1904 fire in his Boston studio destroyed several hundred of his early paintings, including nearly all of his landscapes.
He died in Boca Grande, Florida."
I know this is the worst kind of speculation, but the thought struck me that the poor man, having lost HUNDREDS of his landscape paintings in a fire, maybe appreciated the chance to work and practice his art on landscapes of a more permanent nature. (I believe he was a member at Wollaston as early as 1908, perhaps even earlier than that.)
Peter
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Joe
Do you have a copy of the writeup on Merion that Alex Findlay wrote, where Pickering is mentioned prominently?
I'm thinkin it might be timely to re-read in light of some of this new info.
Thanks
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(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2313/2765425337_45b0e68af5_b.jpg)
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PeterP:
If Joseph Rodefer DeCamp actually lived (in the winter) in Boca Grande he probably had some pretty tight connections with some pretty interesting bigtimers in that world back then. As far as I know, Boca Grande, or most of it is an island that was pretty much owned and controlled by a pretty famous family and to live there you kind of had to know them and their crowd. It was something like Hobe Sound, Florida used to be that way.
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Wayne,
Thanks for that article.
It's interesting that the last paragraph is virtually word-for-word with the Waterloo IA news account, except the Hawkeye version says Pickering "laid out" the course, which seems a bit of hyperbole.
It does seem from the seeding, etc., that he must have been there pretty early in the build process...certainly by sometime in 1911.
It's also interesting that Findlay, who would have had the inside skinny certainly from his relationshp with Pickering, mentions Hugh Wilson and his committee as having done the same thing as HC Leeds did for Myopia...created the best course in their state.
No mention of those other guys who some somehow still think were the designers. Must be an oversight by Findlay, or perhaps he was lying. ;)
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Wayne,
Thanks for that article.
It's interesting that the last paragraph is virtually word-for-word with the Waterloo IA news account, except the Hawkeye version says Pickering "laid out" the course, which seems a bit of hyperbole.
It does seem from the seeding, etc., that he must have been there pretty early in the build process...certainly by sometime in 1911.
It's also interesting that Findlay, who would have had the inside skinny certainly from his relationshp with Pickering, mentions Hugh Wilson and his committee as having done the same thing as HC Leeds did for Myopia...created the best course in their state.
No mention of those other guys who some somehow still think were the designers. Must be an oversight by Findlay, or perhaps he was lying. ;)
Mike,
If I recall correctly, according to Wayne and TEPaul Pickering was not there when the course was planned. Also, the article said that they "built" the best course in their state. Not sure there has ever been an issue about who built Merion.
By the way Mike, this exact same information is in my draft essay.
Also, keep in mind that Findlay and Pickering had a business relationship at this time.
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I believe the real issue emanating from Mr. Moriarty's essay on Merion is not about who "built" Merion East but who "routed" and "designed" the course.
A house-keeping point that needs to be mentioned here, however, is back then just about noone referred to the routing process of a golf course as "routing". The term used back then which was synonymous to our description of "routing" or "designing" was "laying out" or "planning" (or "plans" or "courses"). Those are the terms and descriptions MCC used in their meeting minutes, although in one letter the MCC president, Allan Evans, used the term "laying up". ;)
It was a pretty different era from our own for sure!
"If I recall correctly, according to Wayne and TEPaul Pickering was not there when the course was planned."
Apparently not and that would explain why in April 1911 a committee report was presented to the Board explaining that the club did not have the "tools" or the manpower to construct the course and this is why the report recommended the hiring of Johnson Contractors. It even explained what they were to do.
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I believe the real issue emanating from Mr. Moriarty's essay on Merion is not about who "built" Merion East but who "routed" and "designed" the course.
A house-keeping point that needs to be mentioned here, however, is back then just about noone referred to the routing process of a golf course as "routing". The term used back then which was synonymous to our description of "routing" or "designing" was "laying out" or "planning" (or "plans" or "courses"). Those are the terms and descriptions MCC used in their meeting minutes, although in one letter the MCC president, Allan Evans, used the term "laying up". ;)
With all due respect, this is inaccurate and is misleading.
In my research, the phrase "laying out" almost always involved arranging the course on the ground as in "to lay the course out upon the ground." While sometimes "laying out" and planning were overlapping (the 18 stakes on an afternoon method,) oftentimes the "planning" or "advising" came before the "laying out" and was a separate step. When a separate and distinct planning or advising stage took place, it was rarely if ever referred to as "laying out" the golf course. I believe my draft essay explains this, but the next draft will clarify further.
For example, an "expert" (or experts) would be brought in to inspect the property and would "advise" the committee, "plan" a golf course or "plan the layout" or would "advise" as to the "plan" a golf course, then later the committee or someone else involved would "lay out" the golf course based upon that plan. If at all, the "expert" was sometimes mentioned at the very early stages though he was sometimes not even identified by name! Even when he was identified by name early in the process, he was often forgotten when it came to attribution for the course, in favor of whoever was in charge of laying out the course.
This odd way of looking at the process may be as a result of a general disrespect for the professional at the time (especially the foreign professional, as almost all were) but may also have something to do with a changing understanding of what it meant to design and create a golf course.
Either way, this odd (but common) habit of essentially ignoring the planner might go a long ways toward explaining why the supposed "amateur/sportsman" was so prevalent during this period.
Tom Paul,
Your selective references to the MCC minutes provide very little clarity to the conversation, and may well be confusing or misleading. I am sure the minutes would speak for themselves if you would let them. Given that there is obviously no privacy issue (you discuss them daily and others such as Mike Cirba claim to have seen them!) I cannot understand a legitimate reason why you don't. Thanks.
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"With all due respect, this is inaccurate and is misleading.
In my research, the phrase "laying out" almost always involved arranging the course on the ground as in "to lay the course out upon the ground." While sometimes "laying out" and planning were overlapping (the 18 stakes on an afternoon method,) oftentimes the "planning" or "advising" came before the "laying out" and was a separate step. When a separate and distinct planning or advising stage took place, it was rarely if ever referred to as "laying out" the golf course. I believe my draft essay explains this, but the next draft will clarify further.
For example, an "expert" (or experts) would be brought in to inspect the property and would "advise" the committee, "plan" a golf course or "plan the layout" or would "advise" as to the "plan" a golf course, then later the committee or someone else involved would "lay out" the golf course based upon that plan. If at all, the "expert" was sometimes mentioned at the very early stages though he was sometimes not even identified by name! Even when he was identified by name early in the process, he was often forgotten when it came to attribution for the course, in favor of whoever was in charge of laying out the course.
This odd way of looking at the process may be as a result of a general disrespect for the professional at the time (especially the foreign professional, as almost all were) but may also have something to do with a changing understanding of what it meant to design and create a golf course.
Either way, this odd (but common) habit of essentially ignoring the planner might go a long ways toward explaining why the supposed "amateur/sportsman" was so prevalent during this period."
The entire foregoing remarks by David Moriarty as to the routing and design of Merion East are completely wrong. Let me reiterate, they are completely wrong. The primary reason is the club's records explain comprehensively (and contemporaneously) who routed and designed Merion East. It wasn't Macdonad/Whigam, it was Hugh Wilson and his committee as Merion's history has always reported and explained. If David Moriarty or anyone else thinks it was otherwise they are completely and entirely wrong historically. Moriarty, MacWood or anyone else can continue to dismiss, discount or rationalize the point and issue any way they want to but the fact is if they claim or imply that Wilson and his committee did not do the routing and design of Merion East they are completely and utterly wrong. That's just the way it is and the club's records, board and committee meeting minutes prove it! ;)
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F.G. Pickering was in charge of the cricket grounds of the Boston Cricket Club at Franklin Fields when Willie Campbell laid out the links at the adjacent Franklin Park (1896). Does anyone know if Pickering was involved in the construction of the course or what impact, if any, it may have had upon his move from cricket to golf?
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The entire foregoing remarks by David Moriarty as to the routing and design of Merion East are completely wrong. Let me reiterate, they are completely wrong. The primary reason is the club's records explain comprehensively (and contemporaneously) who routed and designed Merion East. It wasn't Macdonad/Whigam, it was Hugh Wilson and his committee as Merion's history has always reported and explained. If David Moriarty or anyone else thinks it was otherwise they are completely and entirely wrong historically. Moriarty, MacWood or anyone else can continue to dismiss, discount or rationalize the point and issue any way they want to but the fact is if they claim or imply that Wilson and his committee did not do the routing and design of Merion East they are completely and utterly wrong. That's just the way it is and the club's records, board and committee meeting minutes prove it! ;)
Tom Paul.
My comments were general of nature and don't just apply to Merion East.
As for the Merion Meeting Minutes, what the may prove or disprove remains to be seen. One thing is for certain, they cannot possibly "prove" anything in this open forum until they are produced in the context within which they were written, so that those in this forum can make up their own mind.
That is what I did with my draft essay. Not only did I present my interpretation and opinion, I also provided quotes and citations, and made all of the supporting materials available for review and critique. That is really the only acceptable path to take if one is really interested in getting to the truth of the matter. I am sure Wayne agrees with me on this, because he told me so soon after my essay was posted.
Besides, your position in untenable even based on what you have said about the Minutes. From what I have gleaned, at the very least the Meeting Minutes confirm that M&W extensively involved in the design process throughout and even chose the final routing. Hardly sounds like the minutes justify cutting him out. Perhaps the minutes clarify, but as it is I don't think your interpretation holds water.
But again, my comments were general in nature. Can we return to the topic?
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David -
there was a lot of debate on past threads about what "laying out" meant back then, and I don't want to rehash that. But the question is a very important one, because as you say it might reflect both the 'socio-economic' realities of the times, as well as a then-changing concept of what it meant to design and create a golf course. That's why Mike C's first post on this thread and the articles he quoted about Pickering are so relevant. To me, it seems like the writers were going out of their way to praise Pickering, not in the sense of giving him undeserved credit but as if (as social-progressives) they were trying to tell their audience not to forget the working-class men who actually built the courses. Look at the language they use:
Pickering, "another golf expert, who had charge of the ACTUAL WORK OF BUILDING some 390 golf links..."
"Mr. Pickering has charge of ALL THE WORK OF CONSTRUCTION..."
"Just find Mr. Pickering, this veteran in the art of CONSTRUCTING courses...."
Pickering's "latest achievement far surpasses anything he has ever done in the CONSTRUCTION of golf links..."
"Mr. Findlay will send here...Fred Pickering, the king of all golf course CONSTRUCTORS, and he will guarantee a course and 18 perfect putting greens of the most undulating kind to be in perfect shape on the first day of June 1915."
What I'm saying is that these quotes seem to come from expert observers who valued men who worked with their hands, who highly respected Mr. Pickering and his contributions in particular, and who wanted those contributions appreciated (perhaps for the first time). And yet, though I assume the term was in use at the time, not one of them used "laying out" to describe what Mr. Pickering did, and all of them focused on the actual building/construction of the course, as if it was clear and obvious to everyone that another man had DESIGNED/LAID OUT the course.
I'm not trying to question what you've found in your researches. I'm saying that in this one very relevant example (i.e. Pickering) from exactly the time we're discussing and using only contemporaneous reports/articles, it doesn't seem like there was much debate at all about what the concept of design meant.
Does this answer the question about how golf course architecture (and in particular, how good/great golf architecture and the 'art' of it) was understood and practiced back then? No, I don't think so. But it does seem to make clear the standard "division of labour" in those days...
Peter
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That's why Mike C's first post on this thread and the articles he quoted about Pickering are so relevant. To me, it seems like the writers were going out of their way to praise Pickering, not in the sense of giving him undeserved credit but as if (as social-progressives) they were trying to tell their audience not to forget the working-class men who actually built the courses.
Huh? Please elaborate. Findlay and Bendelow weren't working class men?
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F.G. Pickering was in charge of the cricket grounds of the Boston Cricket Club at Franklin Fields when Willie Campbell laid out the links at the adjacent Franklin Park (1896). Does anyone know if Pickering was involved in the construction of the course or what impact, if any, it may have had upon his move from cricket to golf?
Tom Macwood,
Not sure if this helps, but your question may answer a question of mine. I recall seeing reference to a plan for a second course at Franklin Park, and to a report to some committee or another. According to the article two men had inspected the proposed site, the first was experienced in planning golf courses and the second was experienced in building them. I thought that Campbell was a good bet for the first, but was curious about the second. Perhaps Pickering was already building courses.
I'll try to track down the article but having no luck right now.
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Peter,
First, I am not equating "laying out" a golf course with "constructing" a golf course. There are three overlapping but sometimes distinct concepts: Planning, laying out, and constructing. It is a bit confusing, I am not sure I totally understand it, and am pretty sure that often-times those recording these things were still figuring out how to use the terminology. Nonetheless, here is a quick and dirty, over-generalized, and oversimplified explanation, looking at the evolution historically:
Once upon a time, golf links were just "laid out." Some shepherd walked around the dunes, found some good grass, and put a hole in the ground, walked for a while, found another good chunk of grass, put another hole, etc. He simply laid the course out on the ground. Any "planning" that took place was part of the laying out. Same goes for the "constructing," which might not have amounted to anything other than digging holes.
With the advent of man-made hazards and artificially leveled and/or contoured greens, the need for constructing arose. With the game spreading around the globe to those without much experience with the game, the need for planning a golf course arose. Somewhere in between was the concept of "laying the course out on the ground." Sometimes part of planning, sometimes part of constructing, sometimes neither.
Early on in this transition, before the planners were doing detailed plans or putting much of anything on paper, it seems like their contribution was easy to minimize or totally ignore. The people getting their hands dirty are not mentioned much either. It seems like the person in the middle, the one taking the planners advice and telling the builders what to build are the ones who got the most credit, usually for laying out the course.
Second, as for the articles about Pickering. No doubt Pickering was a very important figure and was probably involved in many more great courses than we yet know, but for the most part history has overlooked him in the same manner that history has overlooked so many of the others who were paid for their hard work around the turn of the century. To me the articles are interesting because they may be more the exception than the rule. In many cases (including in at least one the blurbs) the clubmen in charge of of the lay out and construction are the ones who ultimately receive the lion's share of the credit. If Pickering built even a fraction of the courses he claims to have built, he was most often completely ignored. A few factors you might want to consider when considering even these blurbs:
1. At least one of the articles was written by Findlay, who had a business relationship with Pickering. Praising Pickering may have been good for business.
2. At least another of the articles appears to have been lifted by one the written by Findlay.
3. I don't think you should assume that "expert observers" wrote these articles. All of the blurbs are so effusive that they read more like press releases than journalism. If one reads enough of these old articles one will find that about every course "will be the best in ___________, and great in every way." One gets the feeling that these may be placed announcements rather than objective journalism. (In fact, I think I mention in my essay that some of the articles on Merion closely track announcements to the members made by the clubs.) Given that another of the articles also mentions that Findlay in involved, I wonder if Findlay figured out how to promote himself early on, and included Pickering as part of the promotion.
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I've always thought Wayne and TE were way too hard on him, their complete focus was the apparent troubles he had with the drink at Merion and Seaview (according to one letter). They left you with the impression he was some kind of derelict, but Wilson engaged him after Merion at Seaview, and he was working and buiding golf courses in the years following those 'troubles'. Ironically he ended his career being the long time greenkeeper at Myopia Hunt. I presume they thought he had his act together.
I have long been on the record on this site and in our Flynn book that Pickering was a very important figure in the development of Merion's first course in Ardmore. I mentioned that Pickering's experience outweighed that of Barker, Macdonald and Whigham combined. Their Macdonald theory was based on the erroneous fact that Wilson and Committee did not have enough experience or ability at the time to design and develop Merion's first Ardmore course without relying on Macdonald and Whigham. The Club did rely on M&W in exactly the manner they've always credited them with. Not as routers and designers of the golf course as MacWood and what's his name would have everyone believe despite evidence to the contrary. I suggested Pickering may have worked for the outside construction crew hired by Merion to build the golf course. I have suggested in the past that the contractors had a lot to do with the look and design details of the golf courses they built. I championed the role of Pickering for many years while Tom MacWood ignored him and sought to bring attribution credit to Barker, Macdonald and Whigham; basically everybody but the true participants in the design and build process, namely Wilson and Committee and Pickering. We did cite reasons for Pickering's dismissal and later problems at Seaview. Pickering may have gotten his act together down the road, we did not explore his work after Seaview, for it had no relevance to the book we wrote on FLYNN. We DID NOT address Pickering's role in a way that besmirches him in any way. We told the truth in a rather sympathetic way. His actions opened the doors to Flynn's greater role on the West Course and launched his career. Sadly at the expense of Pickering.
It was the two princes of besmirch, MacWood and he who shall go unnamed, that long-ignored Pickering. Now, when they wish to discredit and embarrass Tom Paul and I using a 5-year old obsolete manuscript draft in their knit-picking quest for rewriting minute details when they consistently get the big ones wrong--like completely misrepresenting Macdonald and Whigham's role at Merion based on suppositions and minimizing and getting completely wrong Wilson's initial role, based on fact. Interestingly, MacWood and he who shall go unnamed, to this day do not for a minute think they just might be wrong and consider that evidence we have obtained may just upset their shaky house of cards model. They see our withholding facts from THEM as indications that we are purposefully hiding facts that support their claims and smash our own. Once again they are WRONG. We have shown a number of people, mostly at MGC and MCC, but select others, the raw material. One of the viewers of the raw material is a golfing buddy of the California component of the disastrous duo. We deny these two guys the material because of their conduct, their process and their conclusions. Someday they will have access to it, perhaps via the USGA, they could always come to MGC or MCC at some future date and ask for permission or they can go to Mike Hurdzan as he will surely have a copy, and one day the book in his impressive collection.
Rather than figuring out where they may have gone wrong with their work to date, they deflect from their mistakes and now accuse Flynn's daughter of memory failure and our inclusion of information related by her--all taken from an old draft manuscript. By the way, MacWood, Flynn was born and raised a Catholic (until he himself decided against following that Church at age 12). Flynn's daughter told us that his father's ancestors came from Cork and not Northern Ireland even though one document that she saw and we have access to has Northern Ireland on it. Our opinion, aided by Flynn's daughter, is that Flynn's father left Queenstown for America. Someone from Northern Ireland would not do that. You may have time to exhaustively search out the truth, we were content with Flynn's daughter's account and as it wasn't pivotal to Flynn's work in golf, we presented it. MacWood seeks the elusive influences (purely subjective and interpretive) and thinks this data important. Well, we had a 1700 page book to write and we were hoping to get it done in our lifetime. Tom MacWood and what's his name would have us abandon work (well, me in any case) and push back the process to publish in order to explore to the end of the road the many thousands of information pieces. Does anyone think that is rubbish? Why are they considering the 3-5 year old draft of a manuscript (a mere fraction of the content the current version is) when there are plenty of books out their that are published with serious mistakes in them, including one on their beloved Macdonald? It isn't because they are intellectually curious about Flynn, that is a thinly veiled attempt to camouflage their true ambition, to bring disrepute to Tom and I. That is their motivation and goal. Make no mistake about it.
Look, the fact is, we came up with 1700 pages of detailed information on Flynn. Are we 100% accurate about everything? No. We don't claim to be. We offer our best efforts and sometimes, though clearly stated, our opinions while providing citations. The readers can decide for themselves. We did not write the book as if we were being cross examined in court and providing testimony, though it feels that is the process on this website from MacWood and he who still remains nameless. We did extensive due diligence on everything relating to golf course architecture. Forgive us for trusting Flynn's daughter for family facts. She and her niece studied this and we used their information, not to perpetuate myths or build legends as two would accuse us in their broken record fashion. We did not do deep due diligence on every fact she provided. I guess we are a bit more trusting of people than MacWood. He has never met her, so he is removed from the situation. Perhaps that is good, perhaps not. Before he continues his quest to discredit her and her representations, perhaps he ought to consider what it has to do with our primary interest, golf architecture. Leave her alone. Point the blame at Tom and I if you must, but have the decency to leave her out of your maniacal frenzies.
Wayne
Who said anything about abandoning your work? I'm certain Flynn's daughter is wonderful resource and a direct connection to Flynn, but she is 80+ years old and your asking her to recount facts that occured before she was born. I would have thought trying to confirm the acccuracy of what she told you would be the prudent thing to do, especially when began to learn some of her memories were wrong, like when she told you Flynn's father died when he was a boy.
Obviously the architecture is your main focus but isn't it difficult to separate the man's life from his career? Aren't the two interrelated? You barely mention Pickering or his construction background in the article, focusing on the fact that he was sacked for drinking. He was one of the key figures in Flynn's architectural career. For years you only presented him as minor figure, it was only when M&W were introduced into the Merion picture more prominently that you began to emphasize his role. And I don't recall you ever mentioning Johnson Contracting until recently, so I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say you have suggested Pickering may have been with the outside construction crew. You haven't suggested anything, you have said he was THE construction person.
To my knowledge no one has suggested you abandon your work. Isn't it better this new information come out before you publish than after?
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Tom,
So because Flynn's daughter was wrong about one piece of irrelevant information to our topic, one which we saw no need to fact check as a result, you are skeptical about her entire contribution. I don't care. In a 1700 page book on the work in golf by William Flynn we are not going to get every fact right. I don't mind so much that we quoted Flynn's daughter as saying her grandfather died when her father was young and that appears to be incorrect (I too have the 1930 census reports) and comment on the remark in later versions of our manuscript. You are absolutely correct that it does not appear in your OBSOLETE version. Why you continue to criticize an obsolete manuscript is curious indeed, especially since all you seem to come up with for critiques are arcane facts. You choose to constantly critique on this website. If you think I sent you that DRAFT years ago to discredit me in public, I think you misunderstood the motivation to send it to you. It was supposed to be a constructive confidential due diligence process not fodder for your public vendetta. In any case, have at it with these minute corrections of an obsolete manuscript. If you want to focus on that, fine. I think the site sees exactly what you're attempting to do as you expose yourself as the petty expert researcher that you are. Why you aren't correcting your protege's mistake laden essay, seems obvious. You want to rewrite history for your own promotion at the expense of the truth. By the way, by mistake laden, I'm talking big mistakes, not when the father of Wilson's second cousin twice removed died kind of mistakes.
Now, as for the Flynn article, what makes you think that the article as appeared in the Golf Architecture series was the entire manuscript I submitted? How can you ignore the possibility that the piece was edited down? It was a journal article, not the definitive treatise you would have it be. That was one article of many in the journal and it was not at all intended to be the definitive study on Flynn and certainly not Pickering. Neil had a difficult job given the amount of material I sent him. I think he did a fantastic job of editing and presenting enough facts that people will be intrigued by Flynn and want to know more. I am happy with the article on the whole. Sorry you could not find any merits worth discussing, only faults that you relish discussing in public. Such is your nature, disgusting as it may be.
As for my discussions of Pickering, you falsely characterize them. It wasn't only when M&W were introduced that I took up the Pickering mantle. I took up Pickering from the first time I heard of him by Flynn's daughter in November 2001 (I have the conversation recorded if you would like to confirm). By the way, M&W wasn't introduced by you and your protege. They were properly credited all along by the Merion chroniclers and by the participants themselves. You two didn't introduce M&W, you completely fabricated and distorted their role along with mistakenly discrediting the actual participants in the locating, design and build teams. You guys made serious mistakes of the kind a novice would make. So, I've been talking about him for years, maybe not to you, but so what? I don't talk to you. Take a look at the thread on your protege's essay (I guess you're proud of that one since you fail to criticize it at all). You'll see where I brought him up plenty of times and in proper perspective. If you don't think I've been promoting him properly for years, you are wrong and twisting the truth to your own end. By the way, even if I didn't promote him as much as you say I should, you ignored him completely. In an attempt to prove that only M&W had the ability to pull off the design and construction of Merion's new Ardmore course, you failed miserably to include Pickering's expertise or even recognize him at all. I brought that up right away in my careful and toned down analysis. It didn't get combative until the reactions by the author demonstrated a lack of being able to handle constructive criticism. Your criticism by the way is not constructive, it is intended to be destructive. That's why you use old material and that's why you do so on this site.
By the way, M&W provided valuable advice at three pivotal stages, as has always been asserted by Merion, if only done so in general. They DID NOT select the property, rout or design the golf course. I don't care if you stick to your notions that they did. You are WRONG and it will eventually come out. You'll eat some flocks of crow at that point. For now, we are not inclined, in deference to the clubs involved, to publish private raw data on this site. In the meantime, you come off as stubborn zealots of your own mistake-riddled theories. If you don't want Tom Paul or others to offer their opinions, I understand your motivation to censor them. It isn't right, but your motives are transparent. If you don't think Pickering got a proper amount of discussion in the Flynn book, you have no clue because your version is obsolete and a fraction of the current version. Stop trying to discredit us with old manuscripts and edited articles. You are providing no benefits and only attempt to bring us down to the gutter level in your zeal to take Tom Paul and I down. Well guess what? You won't bring us down to the gutter, nor the many levels below that where you and your protege dwell.
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Mr. MacWood:
Your constant harping on Wayne about the inaccuracy of truly minor or irrelevent facts has become so transparent and frankly boring. It's so transparent because it seems to be the only vehicle left for you to promote yourself as a better researcher than Wayne or anyone else. This theme is pretty apparent in most every post you've made since returning to this website. In the process I'm afraid it has really only served to make everyone else see you are a pretty misguided golf architecture analyst.
I hope you don't view this as another example of me trying to attack you personally because it isn't that at all----it's only about architectural information and analysis. I would hope one of these days you come to see what you are doing for what it really is. I say that because it has become so silly on your part---and it shows that the only one hurting your own reputation on here and elsewhere is you.
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Wayne
Anyone interested in knowing how you and TE have characterized Pickering over the years can do a simple search.
Regarding Flynn's daughters accuracy, I'm quite a bit younger than 86 years old and I have difficulty remember what I did ten years ago much less what my father did in 1910. Not only is it asking too much for her to remember the details of her father's life, there were a number of stories that made absolutely no sense. For example, who hires a 19-year old high school golfer to design a golf course? Or that Flynn and the multi-millionaire Plunkett had some kind of relationship or that the son of a day laborer marries into the one the wealthiest Boston families (I suspect that tale was a TE invention). These were not unimportant events in his career, I would have thought they deserved a little further scrutiny, not to mention accuracy.
Again, as I explained at the beginning of the Flynn thread, I was not referring to information from your old manuscript, this was information contained in your article that came out last summer. And since when is correcting the record dragging you down in to the gutter?
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"Regarding Flynn's daughters accuracy, I'm quite a bit younger than 86 years old and I have difficulty remember what I did ten years ago much less what my father did in 1910. Not only is it asking too much for her to remember the details of her father's life, there were a number of stories that made absolutely no sense. For example, who hires a 19-year old high school golfer to design a golf course? Or that Flynn and the multi-millionaire Plunkett had some kind of relationship or that the son of a day laborer marries into the one the wealthiest Boston families (I suspect that tale was a TE invention). These were not unimportant events in his career, I would have thought they deserved a little further scrutiny, not to mention accuracy."
Mr. MacWood:
When you say there were a number of stories that made absolutely no sense, we are aware that they make no sense to you but thankfully many of the things that make sense to you and don't make sense to you are not exactly based in fact or reality.
As far as Flynn marrying into the Gardner family I'm referring to, I never said Flynn married one of the weathier Gardners. Apparently the most simple logic immaginable has never occured to you in this vein. The Gardner family I'm talking about has been in America for close to 250 years and has been extremely prominent for a lot of reasons throughout but if one thinks about that generational extrapolation despite the fact all the progeny through the centuries are related not all of them may've been wealthy at any particular point in time. This is just another example of why your logic and your responses are so bizarre and not really worthy of much credibility.
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Tom MacWood,
Simply wait for the book to come out. Trash it all you want then. For now, you are premature and not sufficiently informed to do so with any accuracy or credibility. So until then, let us, by all means go our separate ways. To do so, it would be best not to keep going after me. I promise to leave you alone if you would only do the same for me. I offer you an olive branch. I hope you'll take it. If you would rather smoke a peace pipe, I'll try and find some stuff to fill it and gladly light it for you if you don't Bogart it and are willing to pass it back to me. 8)
Fare the well.
Wayne
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TE
Evidently you forgot this exchange between Wayne & yourself, and in his article Wayne said Flynn married into the august Gardner family of Boston. Speculation is fine when your posting something on GCA, but I would think you'd confirm it before you put into a book or an article.
WM: William Flynn (of Milton, MA) was married to a Gardner, one of the most prominent families in Boston. It would not surprise me that his wife's family were of the same family tree. Fascinating that a young Irish-American lad of working-class parents married into that family. I guess being captain of the Milton HS golf, basketball, baseball and football teams made the Boston Brahman lass swoon a bit.
TP: You're right there about the Gardners of Boston. It definitely took me by surprise when Connie L told us her mother was a Gardner and she traced her American roots back to the Mayflower. That's pretty much a dead giveaway that it's the same family tree. Believe me if you're part of the whole Mayflower Society thing they check your family history with a fine-toothed comb. The Gardners are a really big generational Boston family though, but it is totally Old Boston. I went to school up there with a guy called Peabody (Peabo) Gardner and that's the name that sort of the filters through the family's American history.
WM: . . . You don't want to hear about connections among the small world of the movers and shakers in the early 1900s. That doesn't mean there isn't anything interesting there including the marriage of a working class Irishman with an upper crust elite Boston Brahman debutante. It just so happens that a member of her family helped create the golf course at TCC. Several decades later her husband significantly remodeled and designed holes for TCC. . . .
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Mr MacWood:
I haven't forgotten that exchange at all. I believe Mrs Flynn was from that very same Gardner family. My only point to you was to correct you when you claimed I said Mrs. Flynn was wealthy. I didn't say that. You're the only one who said I said that. What I said to you is it's pretty illogical of you to ASSUME that ALL the numerous members of that Gardner family who have been here for about 250 years were all wealthy! ???
Both you and David Moriarty are complete disasters when it comes to constantly assigning words and ideas to people they never said and never expressed or implied. Why do you suppose the both of you continuously do that on this discussion forum? ::) ;)
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Mr MacWood:
I haven't forgotten that exchange at all. I believe Mrs Flynn was from that very same Gardner family. My only point to you was to correct you when you claimed I said Mrs. Flynn was wealthy. I didn't say that. You're the only one who said I said that. What I said to you is it's pretty illogical of you to ASSUME that ALL the numerous members of that Gardner family who have been here for about 250 years were all wealthy! ???
Both you and David Moriarty are complete disasters when it comes to constantly assigning words and ideas to people they never said and never expressed or implied. Why do you suppose the both of you continuously do that on this discussion forum? ::) ;)
TE
I'm affraid your assumption was wrong - two different families. AP Gardner is a descendant of Thomas Gardner who came over in 1626 and settled in Salem. Lillian Gardner is a descendant of John Gardner who came over in 1650 and settled in Hingham.
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Tom MacWood,
Simply wait for the book to come out. Trash it all you want then. For now, you are premature and not sufficiently informed to do so with any accuracy or credibility. So until then, let us, by all means go our separate ways. To do so, it would be best not to keep going after me. I promise to leave you alone if you would only do the same for me. I offer you an olive branch. I hope you'll take it. If you would rather smoke a peace pipe, I'll try and find some stuff to fill it and gladly light it for you if you don't Bogart it and are willing to pass it back to me. 8)
Fare the well.
Wayne
Wayne
I always come in peace. I try to avoid the name calling and personal stuff. My focus is on trying to discover what really happened, not trashing anything or anybody.
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"TE
I'm affraid your assumption was wrong - two different families. AP Gardner is a descendant of Thomas Gardner who came over in 1626 and settled in Salem. Lillian Gardner is a descendant of John Gardner who came over in 1650 and settled in Hingham."
Mr. MacWood:
Thank you for that information. Believe me that kind of info is much appreciated. I will be glad to take it to Connie Lagerman and check it out with her. She has always seemed extremely interested in her Gardner family heritage and its significance in America. The Gardner family line I'm speaking of and thinking about is the Boston family line that includes Augustus Peabody Gardner and also George Peabody (Peabo) Gardner who I went to school with and who unfortunately died last year after a most respectable life and time.
The Gardner family I'm speaking of and thinking about is related to the Cabots, Lodges, Lowells, Welds, Peabodys and probably the Winthrops too, all extremely prominent Boston families for generations. Perhaps you have heard of some or all of them.
Most all of those families and those names have been in and around those clubs we are discussing, particularly Myopia, for generations and frankly still are.
But perhaps the most significant one to our discussions of Myopia's early golf architectural history is Appleton. Your recent characterisation of him is so off the mark and illogical as to be laughable.
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TE
I've got to give you credit, for someone who is wrong so often, it sure doesn't seem to deter you. I suppose you figure eventually you'll be right. A blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
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"TE
I've got to give you credit, for someone who is wrong so often, it sure doesn't seem to deter you. I suppose you figure eventually you'll be right. A blind pig finds an acorn once in a while."
Mr. MacWood:
I have to be honest and admit that your complete lack of logic, you're almost total proven lack of intelligent deduction to do with commonsensical architecture analysis and your overbearing arrogance that has become so obvious to so many on here and throughout INTERNET land actually gives me great pleasure because you really do deserve every bit of it! ;)
I will never, EVER, stop trailing you and pointing out your failings that are and have always revolved around your never-ending attempts at self-promotion with virtually nothing to support it or deserve it. ;)
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Tom MacWood,
Your general dismissals of Flynn's daughter's accounts of her family history are in error and your assessment of her as a factual source need revision. You suggested Flynn's father was born in Northern Ireland and suggested he was not a Catholic. He was born in Cork, Republic of Ireland, just as Flynn's daughter stated. William was a Roman Catholic until he opted out of the Church at a rather young age. You suggested that Flynn's father lived on much later than Flynn's daughter related to us. I don't recall that she said he died as a young boy. In any case, he did not die when Flynn was a boy. He died in 1915, when Flynn was 24 years old. Maybe that was in the manuscript you have, but of course that is several years old. His mother, Julia nee Furey was from Galway, Republic of Ireland.
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Fred Pickering was a Rock Star. He was Keith Richards before rhythym and blues.
I'm hoping to find out quite a bit more about him soon.
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Mike,
Pickering was born in Boston, England the middle of three boys. I believe Pickering left England at age 16 when his mother died. Pickering met Flynn's sister, Margaret, when he was working at Wollaston. Flynn's sister worked in the clubhouse as did Flynn's mother, who may have been the club cook.
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Oh Man... I know about middle children, being one.
Wayne...let's discuss more this weekend. It's surely an interesting story.
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Tom MacWood,
Your general dismissals of Flynn's daughter's accounts of her family history are in error and your assessment of her as a factual source need revision. You suggested Flynn's father was born in Northern Ireland and suggested he was not a Catholic. He was born in Cork, Republic of Ireland, just as Flynn's daughter stated. William was a Roman Catholic until he opted out of the Church at a rather young age. You suggested that Flynn's father lived on much later than Flynn's daughter related to us. I don't recall that she said he died as a young boy. In any case, he did not die when Flynn was a boy. He died in 1915, when Flynn was 24 years old. Maybe that was in the manuscript you have, but of course that is several years old. His mother, Julia nee Furey was from Galway, Republic of Ireland.
We have since learned many more facts about Fred Pickering and if anything, his base nature had been minimized. He had a number of affairs, children out of wedlock and skipped out on his marriage with Flynn's sister early on, returning to Massachusetts when he was fired from his job at Merion. By the way, Pickering was from Boston, England. We know this from Pickering's great granddaughter who will be visiting Merion this Fall, something you have yet to do. She is very interested in the life of her great grandfather, warts and all. The family has no illusions about the man's drinking, deceptions and wandering ways.
Wayne
Where did I suggest Flynn was not Catholic and his father was born in N. Ireland?
Good to see you're back to dragging Pickering through the mud.
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I love it.
This from the guy who argued that knowing that Leeds was living with Parker was vital to understanding his designs. ::)
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MacWood,
If Pickering's family desires and can accept the truth, is actively seeking it and don't mind it being made public, why are you so taken aback? You didn't openly state Flynn's family was from Northern Ireland, but you did strongly suggest it when you took exception to my statement about Flynn being a working class Irish Catholic lad. And you made no attempt to hide your mistrust of the family history provided by Flynn's daughter. You were wrong to do so by the facts and in the way you chose to discredit her.
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Wayne
Since when is asking you to support your claim against me being taken back? Especially when that claim is incorrect. Did you find where I suggested those things...the GCA search engine works well.
If you go back and read what I wrote about Flynn's daughter, I said I'm sure she was wonderful resource, my criticisms were pointed toward you and TE for accepting the memory of 80+ year old person without any attempt collaborate. I have difficulty remembering what I did last week, much less dates that occured ten years before I was born. If you recall I said it was unreasonable to expect her to get those kind of facts completely accurate, and that when you learned for example that she was wrong about her grandfather dying when Flynn was a boy, you should have had even more reason to check things out.
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Wayne
Where did I suggest Flynn was not Catholic and his father was born in N. Ireland?
In the thread on William Flynn's influences. When you said,
Flynn's parents were from N.Ireland, Pickering (his brother in law) was from England, Hugh Wilson travelled overseas, aren't the odds good he travelled to the UK? Did he serve in WWI?
Wayne
I just took a quick glance at your early version of the Flynn book and there is no mention of his Irish background or his parents roots. Did you address that in your more recent version? Was Flynn an Irish Catholic?
Wayne
What city or town in Ireland did Flynn's father come from?
You are WRONG. Perhaps your analysis of Ancestry.com ship manifests, census reports and birth certificates is simply not very good and you put too much credibility in them. In any case, Michael Flynn was born in County Cork and Julia Flynn was born in Galway. He didn't die when you said he did either. However, you were right about Pickering, he was born in Boston, England.
Here are some other gems of yours from the Influence thread and the Flynn/Peters thread:
Wayne
You are going to base Flynn designing Kilkare on his daughter's word? You choose to igonore all the other facts she got wrong?
Wayne
Flynn's daughter has been wrong before. She thought Flynn's father, her grandfather, died when Flynn was a boy. He did not.
You present a pattern of disrespect and discrediting Flynn's daughter. She was right about nearly everything and you were wrong in dismissing her and relying on your analysis of Ancestry.com.
Speaking of proteges...do you consider Pickering Flynn's mentor?
Analyzing history is not an exact science...it involves making subjective and hopefully well-educated judgments.
Your analysis is biased, subjective is too tame a word for it. Oh, and you make poor judgments. Your analysis of history needs drastic improvement. Start with working with families and clubs. That is a significant piece of the puzzle we're all trying to put together. Do you cheat with puzzles as well? You probably cut the pieces to fit ;)
Wayne
I just took a quick glance at your early version of the Flynn book and there is no mention of his Irish background or his parents roots. Did you address that in your more recent version? Was Flynn an Irish Catholic?
I think I have a pretty good handle on Flynn's early life in Boston, but one thing I've never been able to figure out is how Flynn (and Pinkering) ended up in Philadelphia.
I don't think you do have a pretty good handle.
Flynn's daughter claimed Flynn's father (her grandfather) died when Flynn was a boy. He did not, if fact he was doing quite well when she was born in 1922. I'm not sure when grandpa died but he was going strong in 1930. I also suspect she is the source of the story about Flynn being a tennis pro and the Hartwellville legend. Also your dates are off by a year or more on some the important events of his life. No doubt she is an excellent source of information but memories dim and facts get blurred over multiple decades. I think confirmation would be in order.
He died in 1915. You are incorrect when you say he was going strong in 1930. You're good at digging up death certificates. You should be able to correct your error.
You and Wayne went a bit beyond claiming Lillian Gardner was decedant of the Mayflower.
She may not have been wealthy, but did you prove she was not a descendent? Flynn's daughter was the local chapter president of the DAR. If all her relatives came over in the 1800s, how could that be?
TE
Lillian Gardner's father was a common laborer. She grew up in the same working class neighborhood of Milton as Flynn. While the story you and Wayne painted about the young man from the other side of the tracks marrying a Boston blueblood is a good one, its not true. Did your info come from Flynn's daughter or did you just figure a Gardner is a Gardner?
In Flynn's case Wayne & TE claim that Flynn graduated from HS in 1909 and then married the wealthy Miss Gardner that summer. They then have the couple moving to Hartwellville, Vt. It was there, they claim, at the age of 19, Flynn designed his first golf course, Kilkare, for the very wealthy WB Plunkett, and his career was off and running.
Perhaps that claim is in your several years old version of the Flynn manuscript. For the fiftieth time, it is outdated and obsolete.
Who did what at Merion is about as clear as TE & Wayne's account of Flynn's early career.
That obituary and C&W's attribution are the two main sources for Flynn designing Kilkare. The source of Cornish's information is Flynn's daughter (I'm not sure if she is the source of the incorrect date too). Often times the family supplies the information for obits as well.
Beyond Flynn's daughter's story there is no direct evidence suggesting Flynn designed the golf course or any golf course during that period of his career. Also there is no evidence that Flynn had any relationship with Plunkett.
I don't think you should be criticizing anyone's historic accuracy. It is pretty apparent now why you've chosen not to put your Merion report on GCA. There is no doubt in my mind if you were confident in it it would have been on the site weeks ago.
Now please don't ask me to prove myself anymore. Your recollection of your own statements are poor. You did discredit Flynn's daughter and you can easily be proved wrong. The family has their history a lot more accurate than you do. Interestingly, clubs have their histories a lot more accurate than you do as well.
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Wayne
Since when is asking you to support your claim against me being taken back? Especially when that claim is incorrect. Did you find where I suggested those things...the GCA search engine works well.
I suggested you were taken aback by the posts about Fred Pickering, nothing at all to do with supporting a claim against you. I don't know why you read into things the way you do. It is counterproductive.
As for the claims you say are incorrect, see above. You are wrong again. Check out the Flynn's Influences thread, which you started.
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Wayne
My mistake, I had forgotten that I had mentioned Flynn's parents were from N. Ireland. Flynn's parents, Michael and Julia Flynn listed their place of birth as Ire, English (as opposed to Ire, Irish) on the 1910 Census and William Flynn listed his parents place of birth on the 1930 Census as Northern Ireland.
Where did I suggest he wasn't Catholic?
Are you trying to say Flynn's daughter was correct when she claimed her
grandfather died when Flynn was a boy? That in 1908 at the age of 17 he was a tennis pro at Lake Placid? That Flynn married 1909 and moved to Heartwellville? That he dedsigned the course that same year at the age of 19? That the Gardners came over on the Mayflower? She has been wrong on virtually every thing you chose include in your essay.
By the way, yes I did prove it....I found both Gardner families family trees, I told TE when each first came over and where they arrived.
I did not discredit Flynn's daughter - I repeatedly said it was asking too much for her her to recall those particular events accurately (especially since they occured before she was born) - I discredit your not trying to confirm what she told you. I'm glad to see you are finally getting around to checking on these things, hopefully something postive will come out of all this...like a more accurate account of his life.
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Never mind.
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Tom - don't be so hung up on family trees. My father is really into genealogy and has a great family tree set up for the German side of my family. About two years ago, he discovered that a certain branch of the tree was totally wrong. He's now corrected it and, due to serindipity, has our roots back to the 1400's in the Baden area of Germany.
But the fact is that he was wrong for quite a long time.
(My Irish side has a much better golf pedigree - from County Claire, Ireland!)
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It appears that Pickering constructed Tredyffrin Country Club, as this 1918 Public Ledger article states. TCC is NLE but some consider it to have been one of Findlay's best layouts. Wexler wrote about it in Lost Links.
(http://darwin.chem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/Tredyffrin/06161918_Ledger.jpg)
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Wow...that's much later than any other account I've seen.
Does anyone know when he died?
He seems really linked to Alex Findlay and I'm now wondering if he wasn't also responsible for constructing other courses in the area as well.
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The other thing that strikes me is that there seems to be a constant theme running through these accounts where there is amazement expressed at how much Pickering was able to accomplish in terms of grow-in and fine conditioning in incredibly short periods of time (for the time).
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I spent a good part of the day yesterday at a reuniting of two families, the Flynns and the Pickerings at Merion some 97 years after Pickering's arrival on site. William Flynn's daughter, Connie Lagerman, met several members of the Pickering family for the first time. Fred Pickering was in charge of construction of Merion East for Hugh Wilson and his committee. Pickering was married to Flynn's sister. More than likely it was Pickering that brought Flynn down to Ardmore to work on the Merion crew, eventually taking over for Pickering when he was let go. Flynn's career blossomed in Philadelphia and he and Hugh Wilson became very close on a personal level, much like father and son, and of course in golf design where they worked closely together at Merion and elsewhere until Wilson's untimely death early in 1925 after a chronic illness.
We had a nice lunch and conversation where we learned a few new facts about Flynn and Pickering and their work in golf.
Tom MacWood wrote,
Lillian Gardner's father was a common laborer. She grew up in the same working class neighborhood of Milton as Flynn. While the story you and Wayne painted about the young man from the other side of the tracks marrying a Boston blueblood is a good one, its not true. Did your info come from Flynn's daughter or did you just figure a Gardner is a Gardner?
Tom MacWood is wrong. His research methods are narrowly defined and subject too high an error rate. Rather than widening his scope and conducting interviews and due dilligence outside the confines of his study and Ancestry.com, he chose to disparage William Flynn's daughter's account of her family history and ability to provide accurate information. Well, the Mayflower Society is one group that doesn't take fact checking lightly and does a much more thorough job of it with far greater expertise than Tom MacWood. Their findings coincide not with MacWood, but with Flynn's daughter and she was accepted into their membership.
William Flynn's wife, Lillian Gardner, was from an august family tracing its American roots through the Adams family back to John Alden.
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Wayne/All,
Is there any record or other information that Fred Pickering "helped Charles Macdonald build NGLA" as per the May 1912 article that Joe Bausch unearthed yesterday?
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Not that I am aware of. When Joe sent me the article yesterday, that was the first thing that jumped to my mind. I asked Joe whether he thought the same thing and he surmised as I did. Is Pickering a missing face of NGLA? Could be ;)
Pickering did work at Shinnecock Hills for a time as a green keeper, though we don't know when that was. If we can narrow down that time frame, perhaps we can discover if Pickering was in the area during construction of NGLA.
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I spent a good part of the day yesterday at a reuniting of two families, the Flynns and the Pickerings at Merion some 97 years after Pickering's arrival on site. William Flynn's daughter, Connie Lagerman, met several members of the Pickering family for the first time. Fred Pickering was in charge of construction of Merion East for Hugh Wilson and his committee. Pickering was married to Flynn's sister. More than likely it was Pickering that brought Flynn down to Ardmore to work on the Merion crew, eventually taking over for Pickering when he was let go. Flynn's career blossomed in Philadelphia and he and Hugh Wilson became very close on a personal level, much like father and son, and of course in golf design where they worked closely together at Merion and elsewhere until Wilson's untimely death early in 1925 after a chronic illness.
We had a nice lunch and conversation where we learned a few new facts about Flynn and Pickering and their work in golf.
From what I gather from your previous contact (or was it Tony Pioppi's contact) with Pickering's relative, you two share a common belief that Pickering was a no-good drunken scoundrell. Was that discussed in your get together yesterday?
Tom MacWood wrote,
Lillian Gardner's father was a common laborer. She grew up in the same working class neighborhood of Milton as Flynn. While the story you and Wayne painted about the young man from the other side of the tracks marrying a Boston blueblood is a good one, its not true. Did your info come from Flynn's daughter or did you just figure a Gardner is a Gardner?
Tom MacWood is wrong. His research methods are narrowly defined and subject too high an error rate. Rather than widening his scope and conducting interviews and due dilligence outside the confines of his study and Ancestry.com, he chose to disparage William Flynn's daughter's account of her family history and ability to provide accurate information. Well, the Mayflower Society is one group that doesn't take fact checking lightly and does a much more thorough job of it with far greater expertise than Tom MacWood. Their findings coincide not with MacWood, but with Flynn's daughter and she was accepted into their membership.
William Flynn's wife, Lillian Gardner, was from an august family tracing its American roots through the Adams family back to John Alden.
Thats great, she's a descendant of the Mayflower. If true that fact doesn't change anything I wrote in my quote above. Lillian Gardner's father was a brick-layer/stone-mason. She grew up in blue-collar neighborhood in Milton. Flynn grew up in the same neighborhhod. She was not related to the blueblood Gardners of Myopia fame, which is what you claimed in your Golf Architecture article.
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Not that I am aware of. When Joe sent me the article yesterday, that was the first thing that jumped to my mind. I asked Joe whether he thought the same thing and he surmised as I did. Is Pickering a missing face of NGLA? Could be ;)
Pickering did work at Shinnecock Hills for a time as a green keeper, though we don't know when that was. If we can narrow down that time frame, perhaps we can discover if Pickering was in the area during construction of NGLA.
Wayne,
In some ways, I'm starting to think that Findlay and Pickering were the fathers of american golf course architecture and construction.
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Tom,
You are so disingenuous that it is hardly worth discussing anything with you.
To clear the record you constantly invent and distort, I never characterized Pickering as a no-good drunken scoundrel. On the contrary, I stated facts that were not all that pleasant. The family is keenly aware of them. For someone that goes to great lengths to prove a suicide, why are you chastising me for explaining the circumstances as to how Flynn came to prominence at Merion? That is a far more relevant and influential fact.
While you ignored him for many years and later minimized his contributions, I promoted Pickering's efforts at Merion and quoted the Findlay article years ago as well as making known that he had more experience in building golf courses than Macdonald, Whigham and Barker combined. You did so, not because you were unaware of his efforts, they were disclosed years ago, but because you had an agenda to discredit Merion's internal efforts to route and design Merion East and also the quality and integrity of their historical record. So it was you that turned his back on the truth so you could promote Macdonald, Whigham and Barker as the driving forces behind the routing and design of Merion East. Your argument hinged on no one at Merion having the ability or experience to design and build a golf course saying the only way it could have happened was for the two best architects of their era (Macdonald and Barker) had to do so. Your story does not make sense and does not hold up to the most superficial scrutiny.
We discussed everything we knew about Pickering warts and all at yesterday's gathering. If you don't think that the actions of Pickering resonated throughout subsequent generations represented by the family members visiting Merion yesterday, you are out of touch. There was no need to impune Pickering for his actions, but we did recognize them and not gloss over them. This is the reality you get in the field and not in your study pouring over Ancestry.com pages. It comes to life and is a necessary addition to document searches. You cannot or choose not to do this sort of work.
As to the Lillian Gardner story, it changes a lot about what you wrote. None of us claimed that Lillian Gardner's family was wealthy. By the late 1800s that family was in Boston for nearly 250 years. Wealth and position tends to get diluted. Do you think every DuPont or Rockefeller is wealthy and powerful? In any case, you made it very clear that you did not think Lillian Gardner was related to the old line Boston family due to your investigations on Ancestry.com. Well, I mentioned the truth on here to demonstrate that your findings are not always reliable. Your steadfast adherence to your findings without going into the field and to the clubs and families themselves is a serious flaw in your methods. Like it or not, it is clear to many of us that bother to check your work. No doubt most on here, including the site host, take you and your protege for your word. I think that is a mistake.
By the way, you are wrong again. I did not claim that Flynn's mother was related to the Myopia Gardners in my Golf Architecture article. I stated that she was a member of that august family. We now know that she was and is also related to the Adams family and can trace her roots to John Alden. I would be surprised if she were not somehow, no matter how distantly, related to the Gardners of Myopia. Perhaps you are right in this instance. You've been so wrong, maybe you got something right. Anyway, I think it is much more interesting that she is related to John Alden than the Myopia Gardners.
Now you go off and study your Ancestry.com. Spend hundreds of hours disproving the story. I'm sure you will come up with something.
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Mike,
Speaking of Findlay, it may be that Fred Findlay designed the CC of Virginia, but it also may be that Fred was construction foreman for Flynn as has long been held. findlay stayed on and became green keeper. But Craig Disher found an article that implies Findlay (Fred not Alex) designed CCV, James River. The Flynn drawings we have don't fit so maybe they were an earlier draft and not the final plan. The routing is quite good though it has long since been altered beyond most Flynn recognition.
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Wayne
Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?
You seem to be on a mission to convince us you never said the things you have said about Pickering and Gardner, fortunately we have a written record. Here is a post made and later deleted on Pickering.
We have since learned many more facts about Fred Pickering and if anything, his base nature had been minimized. He had a number of affairs, children out of wedlock and skipped out on his marriage with Flynn's sister early on, returning to Massachusetts when he was fired from his job at Merion. By the way, Pickering was from Boston, England. We know this from Pickering's great granddaughter who will be visiting Merion this Fall, something you have yet to do. She is very interested in the life of her great grandfather, warts and all. The family has no illusions about the man's drinking, deceptions and wandering ways.
On the post below you tried to tell us Flynn had married a Boston blueblood...working class kid marries rich girl from other side of the tracks. In your article you wrote Flynn married Lillian Garner of an august Boston family. August meaning distinguished; her father was a bricklayer. Instead of attacking me and my research methods/abilities, why don't just admit you were mistaken. We all make mistakes, and this one is not that big a deal. The more you try to backtrack and distort the story the more foolish you look.
Alright, we get it. You don't want to hear about connections among the small world of the movers and shakers in the early 1900s. That doesn't mean there isn't anything interesting there including the marriage of a working class Irishman with an upper crust elite Boston Brahman debutante. It just so happens that a member of her family helped create the golf course at TCC. Several decades later her husband significantly remodeled and designed holes for TCC. Your narrow little scheming mind doesn't care. Who gives a shyte? It certainly doesn't mean that others do not care. I don't post for you. The world doesn't revolve around you...though with your massive (and completely unwarranted) ego there probably is some gravitational effect.
PS: Didn't you say a few days ago you would never post on any thread I was involved with? That didn't last long.
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Tom,
No, I didn't get up on the wrong side of the bed. I was outraged at your dismissal of Mrs. Lagerman's recollections and family history because of your limited research methods. Your false reporting and inaccurate analysis needs to be pointed out at all times so no one takes your word for granted. Your conclusions and statements don't warrant such merit.
If I am mistaken about the relation between Lillian Gardner and the Gardners involved in the development of the Country Club, I made a very minor error due to a belief that most of the Gardners in Boston of that era were related no matter how distantly, especially those dating back to the Mayflower. You have not disproved that there was no relationship. I believe in your mind you disproved that Lillian Gardner was not related to the Myopia Gardners. I am not convinced. In any case, as you say, it is minor.
It is not minor to paint Mrs. Lagerman as not reliable and uncertain of her family history. Nor is it minor to deny that Lillian Gardner is anything less than a direct descendent of John Alden and the Adams family. You may not think they are august ancestors or deny she is a member of an august family despite her father's work and financial conditions. I do not interpret it the same way. Are all DuPonts millionaires? Are all Rockefellers? Some of them live quite modestly and work with their hands and not their trust funds. You don't get it. That's OK, there's a lot of truth you don't get and a great many falsehoods you cling to.
If you would only stop being so wrong, I wouldn't be so compelled to post on threads.
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Mr. MacWood:
No matter how you try to slice it or rationalize it you are just wrong about Flynn and the Gardners of Boston.
In my opinion, this is what GOLFCLUBATLAS.com is all about. You've tried to float some real misinformation on here about a bunch of courses and architects and your research, implications, premises, assumptions and conclusions have been shown to be distinctly lacking. This is apparently what happens when one uses a research modus operandi like yours almost always is.
Don't worry, I doubt any of us will ever expect you to admit that but at this point, thankfully, it really doesn't much matter anymore! You proposed more "expert, independent" research and you got it and in the process your limited research information got trumped.
Your constant and expected responses such as "Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?"; "you must be frustrated", and this ridiculous "Philadelphia Syndrome" thing have been shown to be pretty shallow when it comes to research and an intelligent discussion on some important architectural subjects on here! ;)
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Wayne:
It wouldn't be hard for me to prove if Connie's family and the Gardners and Adams we are talking about are related. I've known those Gardners and Adams I'm talking about for over fifty years.
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It sure wouldn't be hard to prove, Tom. Especially given how rigorous the geneology requirements are for the Mayflower Society.
We get an inkling into Tom MacWood's narrow mind when he says a common laborer couldn't be related to the Gardners of Myopia or TCC or the Adams and Alden families. He just doesn't realize that these very old families have branches that spread out pretty far from the main trunk or that families close to the main trunk of the family tree may not be well off. Yet, they are still relations. He relies too much on his Ancestry.com and a few columns in a table. It just doesn't work that way. He overestimates the reliability when information seemingly supports his notions and ignores all information that would upset his cockamamie theories. That isn't good research but that's what you get with MacWood.
All old families like the Adams, Gardners, Rockefellers, DuPonts and maybe even the Pauls are made up of different kinds of relations in all kinds of socio-economic situations ;)
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With all due respect to Flynn's daughter, she was wrong when she claimed Flynn's father died when he was a boy, she was wrong on the date of their marriage (by almost two years), she was wrong that they moved to Heartwellville in 1909, she was wrong that Flynn was a tennis pro, she was wrong that he designed Heartwellville at the age of 19, she was wrong that he designed Heartwellville at all. I can't say she was wrong about Lillian Gardner being a member of the wealthy Gardners of Myopia fame because that one I'm sure was cooked up by TE & Wayne. IMO it is unreasonable to ask a person in their eighties to get precise dates correct, especially when those events took place before she was born. Why Wayne & TE did not try to confirm her information (especially under the circumstances) is beyond me.
TE & Wayne
You are free to write anything you want about Flynn, if you want to prortait he and Lillian as the King & Queen of England thats fine with me. I'm confindent as time goes on we will get a clearer picture of Flynn and his activities.
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You are off in your research in determining Flynn's father's death. I have the death certificate given to me by Pickering's great granddaughter. If I said Mrs. Lagerman told me Flynn's father died when he was a boy, that was my error, not hers. She is quite aware when he died and you are off by more than 15 years.
William Flynn was a tennis instructor. You rely solely on census records to make your determinations. We consider those and a lot more. He was, as you know, also a golf instructor. We have longed believe the date for the Kilcare course is wrong, off by a couple of years, and say so in our book. Flynn told his daughter that he designed the course. You read one newspaper article and make huge leaps to assume otherwise and you declare that he didn't design the course. You have no proof of that yet you claim it with complete certainty. We know that Pickering built the course after he left Merion. Pickering was one of the great course builders of all time, yet you ignored him completely for years and now think because Pickering had a relationship with another architect (he must have had lots of relationships given how many courses he was involved in) that Flynn didn't design the course. I guess Flynn's daughter just made it all up. How the heck was she to know anything about Kilcare anyway? She doesn't recall ever having been there. It was opened for play more than a decade before she was born. Her father told her and she remembers vividly. Before you lump her into a category of memory failing octogenarians, have the decency to meet her, talk to her and know her before you disparage her with you uninformed generalizations. You are a shallow man to behave the way you do and I am outraged by your callousness.
Don't tell us what we are free to do and free not to do. Stay in your ivory tower and pour over Ancestry.com. Our paths won't cross. We're in the field studying at length courses first hand (the few you do consider first hand, you rush through them without taking any time...how many courses did you see in a day on Long Island?), interviewing family members, going to research libraries and making contacts with the clubs themselves and reviewing all archival information available.
I'm not confident that you'll get a clear picture of anything at this point. You have Hurdzan's collection, Ohio State's library and the Internet with your precious though inherently flawed Ancestry.com at your disposal. You make a mess of your analysis. You make significant mistakes in your analysis of your Ancestry.com files, which you think infallible when it suits you and complete. You know enough to be dangerous to the truth if people trust you without due diligence. Well, I don't trust your results as they've proven to be quite lousy. The more significant the implication, the more you are prone to error. You are fairly competent with little meaningless details. Stick to the unprovable influences and your theoretical grand unified Arts and Crafts theory. Real truths continues to elude you.
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Wayne & TE
In your Flynn manuscript you wrote that Flynn's father died when he was young boy. When I corrected that information you told me it came from his daughter.
Have you been able to confirm Flynn was a tennis instructor?
Your Heartwellville information is both wrong and illogical. Flynn's obituary in the NY Times said his first involvement was in building Heartwellville, it made a distinction between building and designing. I'm sure his daughter was relaying info from the obit and was obviously confused.
I also have my doubts about the story of Flynn disliking McGovern. Flynn's doughter would have been a young girl at that time and I seriously doubt Flynn was confiding with her. I suspect you may have been leading the witness. Your disdain for Ross and McGovern is well known, perhaps not to the degree as with Macdonald (to my knowledge you have not urinated on Ross or McGovern's grave), but obvious none the less. I suspect, consciously or subconsciously, you put words in her mouth.
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I get the feeling that the obit for MacWood and Morrison will be well documented....."died of stroke at keyboard while typing rebuttal posts on golf club atlas......" We know the cause of death, we just need to guess at the date.
Chill boys, for your own mental and physical health. In the end, it ain't that important!
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Jeff,
My goal is to correct the impression that Tom MacWood is an authority on anything other than historical inaccuracies. I am not overly upset about anything except that he disparages and generalizes a gentle lady without every having spoken to her, written to her or met her. He is a cad. That is his problem while my mental and physical health is just fine, though I thank you for your concern.
macwood,
You have a manuscript that is obsolete by several years. We know when Flynn's father died. You do not have the right date. You are off by more than 15 years.
We have not yet found the check stubs for Flynn's employment as a tennis instructor, though we will search day and night to satisfy your desire to know. Of course not, you idiot. Why would I bother?
As for the NYT obituary, I doubt the writer knew the difference between building and designing. For that matter, those in the business often blurred the distinction. There you are making mountains out of molehills to suit your crappy analysis and foregone conclusions.
Who gives a rat's ass about your doubts about anything? I do not have a disdain for Ross. I think I have a pretty darn good perspective on him. He had his strengths and weaknesses. I think Gulph Mills is one of America's great golf courses. Even there he made a few mistakes. I don't feel the same way about Aronimink and Pinehurst #2 or other numbers. As for my disdain for McGovern, why would I have any at all? When we spoke with Mrs. Lagerman, I knew next to nothing about him. As for leading her on, you have no basis for that except your warped mind. You are sick to even consider such inane issues as that. Go ahead, believe we led her on and put words in her mouth all because of our Philadelphia Syndrome conspiracy. It was our evil scheme to shed a dark cloud over McGovern. Take your medicine like a good boy, will you please?
I asked you to stop making references to urinating on graves. You continue to perpetuate lies in your attempt to ridicule and discredit. If you do not stop, I will ask Ran to stop you. If he does not, and this slander remains for all to see on the internet, I will take actions against you. You are warned. Do not do it again.
Jeff,
As you can see, Tom MacWood is not mentally stable. He needs to be taken to task for being such an lowlife scum. Will anyone do so? Or does everyone just enjoy the car fire and train wreck that is MacWood?
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Wayne,
He does like to tweak you, no doubt. And Tom Mac's incessant questions would bother me to some degree. I wouldn't alter the course of my research based on anyone else's questions. Well, maybe once or twice, because he has had a few good points and questions, but not continually.
I agree its a matter that Ran should take up, as I mentioned to Tom N. Just like our financial markets, it appears that the laizzez faire method of regulation is not going to work. Higher ups need to do something, although I agree it would be too easy to "overdo it" both there and here.
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Tom MacWood is wrong. His research methods are narrowly defined and subject too high an error rate. Rather than widening his scope and conducting interviews and due dilligence outside the confines of his study and Ancestry.com, he chose to disparage William Flynn's daughter's account of her family history and ability to provide accurate information. Well, the Mayflower Society is one group that doesn't take fact checking lightly and does a much more thorough job of it with far greater expertise than Tom MacWood. Their findings coincide not with MacWood, but with Flynn's daughter and she was accepted into their membership.
No one had made a post on this thread for a month when Wayne made his post above...it seems to me he was looking for trouble. I responded and now he is upset. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen or in this case don't make highly inflamatory posts.
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"Your disdain for Ross and McGovern is well known, perhaps not to the degree as with Macdonald (to my knowledge you have not urinated on Ross or McGovern's grave), but obvious none the less. I suspect, consciously or subconsciously, you put words in her mouth."
Mr. MacWood:
That statement is just complete and outright bullshit on your part and neither one of us are ever going to let it stand on here. If you keep putting garbage like that on this website we will continue to come after you as basically a liar. Now you're getting into the unthinkable of trying to tell people on here what WE think without even bothering to consider what WE say about what we think of some of these architects.
Connie Lagerman was definitely not misled in any way whatsoever. We asked her a very simple and straight-forward question with no names at all involved and from that she's the one who did the talking----not us. She volunteered the name McGovern with no prompting at all from us. We even asked her if she had any idea why her father didn't like McGovern and she said she had no idea and she only remembers he was one architect her father did not like at all. It's a competitive business, I guess, both today and back then but perhaps you haven't even gotten to the point of figuring that out yet! ::)
It's pathetic to see you try to make a career and name for yourself by constantly trying to find trivial little mistakes in the histories of clubs and architects, and not the least reason being you are so wrong so often about what you say. But I guess anyone who goes about research in the extremely limited way you do would be prone to such a thing.
What Wayne said to you on post #82 is right on the money. There's no point at all in you trying to personalize any of this----eg when you put a bunch of misinformation on here you're just going to hear about it. That's what this website is all about. If you can't take the heat then it's you who needs to get out of the kitchen!
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TE
It wouldn't be the first time you and Wayne have infuenced an interviewee. If you will recall your interview of the poor fellow at Merchantville.
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MacWood,
You basically called Mrs. Lagerman ignorant of her own family history. It is you that is ignorant of her family history (your limited methods and your limited intelligence are to blame) and further you are a cad in besmirching her and Tom Paul and I without knowing any FACTS.
I was incensed that you discredited her in the manner you did and I did go out of my way to correct you on here. It must be done each time you lie, twist and make up stories. That is becoming an all too regular habit of yours as you are shown to be WRONG so many times. You don't realize it or believe it, but that is your problem. There is a growing number of others that see you for what you are, an error-prone researcher who is only an expert at making up stories to fit his preconceived notions of how things should be.
I wasn't looking for trouble. I was looking to correct your errors. You responded in an immature fashion again bringing up the FALSE story about me and grave sites. You were asked to stop on many occasions yet you continue to do so. It is a poor diversion and a sorry sort of behavior. I can take a discussion of FACTS, you turn it into slinging false stories and misrepresentations. That is highly inflammatory. Proving you wrong is not.
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It wouldn't be the first time you and Wayne have infuenced an interviewee. If you will recall your interview of the poor fellow at Merchantville.
Wrong again. We learned the truth about you, there was no need to influence anyone. You have no idea what I talked about and what I heard. It simply doesn't correspond to your altered perception of reality.
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"TE
It wouldn't be the first time you and Wayne have infuenced an interviewee. If you will recall your interview of the poor fellow at Merchantville."
My God man, you're really warped. I didn't interview that township manager from Merchantville at all----YOU DID---and you did it (according to him) without even bothering to tell him you might write about Crump's death. Then you even bragged to me later on the phone that how you got that information out of him (without telling him the reason you were calling) proves you're such a great researcher. I mean, seriously, that kind of illogic and thinking and total lack of ethics on your part is so bizarre and fucked up as to be mind-boggling! ::)
I didn't interview him at all. All I did was ask him if you told him why you were calling him----eg that you might write about what he told you. To that he simply said if you came to Merchantville he would consider suing you.
Don't try to lay your incredibly shoddy and unethical research methods on us pal. Don't forget, the Merchantville township manager is still there to explain how it all went down. ;)
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MacWood,
You basically called Mrs. Lagerman ignorant of her own family history. It is you that is ignorant of her family history (your limited methods and your limited intelligence are to blame) and further you are a cad in besmirching her and Tom Paul and I without knowing any FACTS.
I was incensed that you discredited her in the manner you did and I did go out of my way to correct you on here. It must be done each time you lie, twist and make up stories. That is becoming an all too regular habit of yours as you are shown to be WRONG so many times. You don't realize it or believe it, but that is your problem. There is a growing number of others that see you for what you are, an error-prone researcher who is only an expert at making up stories to fit his preconceived notions of how things should be.
I wasn't looking for trouble. I was looking to correct your errors. You responded in an immature fashion again bringing up the FALSE story about me and grave sites. You were asked to stop on many occasions yet you continue to do so. It is a poor diversion and a sorry sort of behavior. I can take a discussion of FACTS, you turn it into slinging false stories and misrepresentations. That is highly inflammatory. Proving you wrong is not.
Wayne
With all due respect many of her facts were wrong, but I have repeatedly said IMO it is unreasonable to expect her to have precise dates and facts surrounding events that happened 80+ years ago, especially when many of those events occured before she was even born. If there is any fault its not with her but with you for not trying to confirm her information before putting it into your article/book.
As far as you urinating on Macdonald's grave, obviously I wasn't there when it supposedly happened, the only reason any of us know about the incedent is because you and TE brought it up on GCA. You certainly have not hidden the fact you're not a fan of Macdonald, which I think as a result has colored your analysis of the Merion story.
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Wayne & TE
Instead of privately threatening Ran and I with law suits, my suggesting is that the three of us take an extended break from the discusion group. There is no reason this site should be subjected to the constant bickering and back biting. I would agree to leave for extended period if you do...I'm thinking the end of the year is a reasonable period.
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Whatever, Tom. I did not bring it up on this site. I laughed it off and hoped it would go away. It would except that you keep bringing it up despite my pleadings to stop. You show your true character by ignoring the facts and constantly revisiting it. No excuses. You are a jerk.
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No deals, Tom. You do not tell the truth. :P
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Mr. MacWood:
I'll guarantee you Connie Lagerman knows a whole hell of a lot more about her father and her family than you ever will from your sole perch in Ivory Tower, Ohio and your sole reliance on the INTERNET. ;)
Wayne (nor I) disrespect Macdonald at all----Wayne just doesn't admire the lines of his architectural style as much as he does some other architects including those who continued to work after Macdonald's active career was done.
And Wayne did not urinate on Macdonald's grave. If you don't believe us why don't you just ask the others who were there if you even know who they were? That was just a joke but obviously it's convenient for you to cast it the way you have to continue to make some incorrect and unsupportable point despite being told the truth about a dozen times.
As for the "Merion Story" that one pretty much tells itself and it always has even if you can't understand it coming at it with two newspaper articles you think you discovered. The irony and the hilariousness of all this is Merion as well as us have had those articles on Macdonald/Whigam's participation with MCC in 1910 and 1911 (his advising and making suggestions) long before you came upon this subject and those articles were always very much part of the tapestry of Merion's history.
This was just another example of your constant inclination to ASSUME when you discover something that noone else has ever been aware of it. ??? This is the reason these kinds of threads begin with you and why you can never really seem to understand the realities of the histories of these clubs and architects. And this will always be the case with you as long as you continue to refuse to go to these clubs and courses and get involved with them. We've been trying to explain this to you for years now---maybe one of these days you'll figure out the validity of what we're telling you----but on the other hand, knowing you, perhaps you never will figure this out!
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"I would agree to leave for extended period if you do...I'm thinking the end of the year is a reasonable period."
Mr. MacWood:
Absolutely not. But if you want to leave please don't allow me or Wayne to stand in your way to the door! ;) It looks like your trainee, the "The Missing Faces of Merion" essayist has left again and thankfully it doesn't look like he felt constrained to make some deal that we all leave too! If you do leave perhaps you can spend the time saved to get around to some of these clubs and courses so you can better familiarize yourself with them and the facts and realities of their histories.
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I tried.
If I was Ran I wouldn't wait for us to volunteer; I would kick at least the two of us (Wayne & I) off the site today.When you have Wayne threatening both Ran and myself with law suits IMO extraordinary actions are needed.
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Mr. MacWood:
I can only speak for myself and not Wayne but I see no reason at all to discuss what you said in that last post. It's a waste of time with the subject of this thread---Fred Pickering. If you want to get into that kind of grandstanding you should just do it on your own.
All any of us need to do on here with these threads is concentrate on the accuracy of historic events and such. That's what we do on here, and that is the basis from which our opinions are derived. That's what we're expected to do by Ran and Ben and such. Obviously there will always be disagreements on what is accurate and what isn't.
That's what GOLFCLUBATLAS.com is all about. If you don't like that then you should take a break.
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Mr. MacWood:
I can only speak for myself and not Wayne but I see no reason at all to discuss what you said in that last post. It's a waste of time with the subject of this thread---Fred Pickering. If you want to get into that kind of grandstanding you should just do it on your own.
All any of us need to do on here with these threads is concentrate on the accuracy of historic events and such. That's what we do on here, and that is the basis from which our opinions are derived. That's what we're expected to do by Ran and Ben and such. Obviously there will always be disagreements on what is accurate and what isn't.
That's what GOLFCLUBATLAS.com is all about. If you don't like that then you should take a break.
I agree. Why then has Wayne spent the last 24 hours attacking me on this thread and why has Wayne threatened to sue both Ran and myself today?
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Mr. MacWood:
I just told you that in my opinion that is not a subject worth discussing on here---eg it is a waste of everyone's time and energy. Is it possible for you to pay any attention to anything anyone says on this website or would you prefer to simply carry on some monologue with yourself about how you are always being attacked by someone for some reason? And that includes your constant questions in the same vein.
This is my final response on your questions and on your suggestion that if you leave others should agree to as well. If you want to leave then just leave.
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TE
It is time to discuss it. This is not the first time Ran has been threatened. Wayne obviously needs a vacation but beyond that as far as I am concerned there is no place on this site for those kinds of threats. I believe it should made clear that if you are going to make any threats you are off the site. This site and Ran doesn't need this kind of BS, and Ran should make an example and kick Wayne (and me) off the site today. Case closed.
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"TE
It is time to discuss it."
Mr. MacWood:
Well, then why don't you discuss it with Ran Morrissett? I sure don't want to discuss it though on one of these threads and I doubt Wayne does either.
Or alternatively, you may want to ask yourself why a number of us in Philadelphia have never had these kinds of problems with anyone on this website other than you and your research fellow-traveler from California. ;)
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Tom MacWood is not telling the truth :P
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Wayne
I'm not going to argue with you. We both got your message loud and clear. This is not the first time Ran has been threatened, and there is no place for it on this site. Anyone who engages in those types of threats should be kicked off the site. Period.
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Wayne:
My suggestion to you would be to just stop responding altogether on here to Tom MacWood on this particular subject of leaving this website or being kicked off of it. It's just another example of him grandstanding again. This doesn't need to be on any of these threads or this DG. If he has a problem in this vein he should take it to Ran Morrissett privately.
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TE
You may not have a problem with participants threatening Ran but I do. Everyone on this site should take notice, that is unacceptable behavior. IMO this issue is much bigger than some minor disagreement between you and I or Wayne and I. Its time this site conduct some self-policing and let everyone know this threatening behavior will not be tollerated.
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"TE
You may not have a problem with participants threatening Ran but I do."
Mr. MacWood:
I have absolutely no knowledge about that and for really obvious reasons I'm most certainly not going to take your word on it. Now, is it possible for you to deal with this privately with Ran Morrissett or are you going to continue to drag this kind of thing out all across these threads? I think the time is going to need to come eventually, Mr. MacWood, for you to learn to take some responsiblility for the really poor pass things have gotten to with you on this website on a few subjects that you seem to insist on perpetuating. If you don't know yet what they are one of them surely is this lie you keep floating about Wayne pissing on Macdonald's grave. How many times do you need to hear that never remotely happened before you stop bringing it up? If you don't like that kind of humor I guess I can understand that but at least learn to take it for what it is. It is not a fact and you just keep presenting it on here as if it were. Why is that? ::)
Learn to take some responsibility for yourself for starters, Tom MacWood, and things just may begin to calm down on this website with these things that seem to overly concern you now.
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I just got another threat from Wayne, this time apparently with TE as a party to it.
Wayne
If you are going to threaten me at least have the courage to do on the site.
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Completely untrue :P
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I just got another threat from Wayne, this time apparently with TE as a party to it.
Mr. MacWood:
What on earth are you talking about now? A party to what threat?? ;) I assure you have no idea. You've got to be either paranoid or suffering from some kind of persecution complex. I really would advise you to take a leave from this site and for mental health reasons if nothing else! I have no problem at all with you being on here but it sounds like you pretty much owe yourself a leave and a rest from this website. But if you do stay I sure would advise you to stop claiming Wayne pissed on Macdonald's grave! How many times have you mentioned that on here, about a dozen times? And for what other than to intentionally try to annoy Wayne Morrison? Have you at least figured out yet that it's not true, and if you haven't then why haven't you? ::)
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Bump of this thread given the discussion of Fred Pickering's work at Merion that is mentioned in the Alex Findlay article.
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Fred - the Highland CC website states:
"Highland was first founded in 1892 and has been listed, by the USGA, as one of the first 100 clubs established in the U.S. The course was architected by Pettis in 1901. There are additional tees that can be used when playing an eighteen hole round. The par for eighteen holes is 70 playing at 6,130 yards. "
(This was from http://www.highlandcountryclubattleboro.com/GolfCourse.asp )
Dan,
Well the website appears to contradict the Boston Journal, which in March of 1909 reported that Attleboro would have one of the finest courses in the Mass. when it opened the next month with a tournament, and that the course had been put into condition under the direction of Pickering and Alex Findlay. (They got Pickering's first name wrong, but I am not aware of another "expert" named Pickering who worked with Findlay.)
Perhaps Pettis "architected" an earlier course and Findlay redesigned it in 1908.
Hi everyone,
I am new to the forum. I hope you indulge my curiosity. The quote above peaked my interest as I have been the Head PGA Professional at Highland Country Club for the past twenty six years. The club was founded in 1901 and the original architect's last name was Pettis from Providence, RI, but his first name was never mentioned in the fiftieth anniversary of the club's history published in 1951. Pettis and Highland Greens keeper (Superintendent) Joe Plante and Joe's horse and tipcart layed out the original course in 1901 for $300.00 ($150.00 over budget).
When the club house burned down in 1957 many of the clubs records were lost. I knew many of the older members, who have long since passed to the "other side", but none could remember Pettis' first name. Any suggestions on where I might look for information to find the elusive Mr. Pettis' first name?
Indecently, there were many early changes to the original design of the course after the demise of the gutta-percha ball. The most notable change came into existence when Donald Ross, living in Pinehurst at the time, designed our seventh hole with work performed by a Mr. Johnson from Wickford, Rhode Island. Ross would play our course on occasion when he lived in North Attleboro, MA and had an office in Sakonnet, RI. Many of the Blackintons (his in laws) are still associated with the club.
I am familiar with Alex Findlay, but he was never mentioned having any association with Highland CC.
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Welcome, DChapman.
The first site I would try is the Fulton History web page:
http://fultonhistory.com/
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Welcome, DChapman.
The first site I would try is the Fulton History web page:
http://fultonhistory.com/
Thanks you Joe! That is a very interesting site, which I will gladly use in the future. Unfortunately, it did not provide the information I was looking for. I will keep searching.
Thanks,
Drew
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Welcome, DChapman.
The first site I would try is the Fulton History web page:
http://fultonhistory.com/
Thanks you Joe! That is a very interesting site, which I will gladly use in the future. Unfortunately, it did not provide the information I was looking for. I will keep searching.
Thanks,
Drew
Drew, if you did not utilize the "fuzzy searching" feature of Fulton, I would recommend trying it. Start at '1' and see if this increases your hits, then increase by one unit until you max out. Then check out all those hits and maybe Mr. Pettis pops up!
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D Chapman,
I tried to quickly retrace my steps on the quote above. There were a few reports in 1899 of a "Highland Country Club" in Taunton in 1899 with over 100 members, and even a description of the course (and some sketches) in the Oct. 1, 1899 Boston Herald. According to this article the Taunton course was originally laid out by Findlay but changed by Joseph Ohlson who "had charge of the links" (likely the greenkeeper.)
Nothing on this club in 1900, but the Herald reported on Sept. 22, 1901, "The Highland Country Club, composed of golfing enthusiasts, was organized in Attleboro last week." Fred. E. Briggs was president and seems to have been running the show. Nothing about a "Pettis." Different officers listed than the earlier Taunton club.
But then March 31, 1909 the Boston Journal announced, under the headline "Tourney to Open New Course," that "Attleboro is to have one of the finest courses in the State when the golfing season opens here on April 19. A tournament on that day will be the opening of the seasons play on the links of the Highland Country Club, which under the direction of experts Austin [sic?] Pickering and Alex Findlay of Wright and Ditson's, have put it into condition. Several Cups have been donated . . . ."
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I just love that this thread started with a Caddyshack quote from Eric Smith. "Another Rob Roy, bishop?"
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Welcome, DChapman.
The first site I would try is the Fulton History web page:
http://fultonhistory.com/
Thanks you Joe! That is a very interesting site, which I will gladly use in the future. Unfortunately, it did not provide the information I was looking for. I will keep searching.
Thanks,
Drew
Drew, if you did not utilize the "fuzzy searching" feature of Fulton, I would recommend trying it. Start at '1' and see if this increases your hits, then increase by one unit until you max out. Then check out all those hits and maybe Mr. Pettis pops up!
Thanks Joe. Tried it, but no results. I'll keep looking.
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D Chapman,
I tried to quickly retrace my steps on the quote above. There were a few reports in 1899 of a "Highland Country Club" in Taunton in 1899 with over 100 members, and even a description of the course (and some sketches) in the Oct. 1, 1899 Boston Herald. According to this article the Taunton course was originally laid out by Findlay but changed by Joseph Ohlson who "had charge of the links" (likely the greenkeeper.)
Nothing on this club in 1900, but the Herald reported on Sept. 22, 1901, "The Highland Country Club, composed of golfing enthusiasts, was organized in Attleboro last week." Fred. E. Briggs was president and seems to have been running the show. Nothing about a "Pettis." Different officers listed than the earlier Taunton club.
But then March 31, 1909 the Boston Journal announced, under the headline "Tourney to Open New Course," that "Attleboro is to have one of the finest courses in the State when the golfing season opens here on April 19. A tournament on that day will be the opening of the seasons play on the links of the Highland Country Club, which under the direction of experts Austin [sic?] Pickering and Alex Findlay of Wright and Ditson's, have put it into condition. Several Cups have been donated . . . ."
Exactly, Highland in Attleboro was indeed founded on September 16, 1901 with the by-laws established on September 25, 1901. Fred E. Briggs was the President of the club from 1901-1906.
The Taunton location (ten minutes from Attleboro) does not have any affiliation and it is the first I have heard of it.
Please let me know if you find any additional information. Your research is greatly appreciated.
Drew